ATLANTA — Forget about a Heisman jinx.
LSU quarterback Joe Burrow picked up where he left off against Oklahoma in the first half of Saturday’s College Football Playoff semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Burrow, who won the Heisman Trophy earlier this month in the most lopsided vote in history, threw seven more touchdowns in the first half as the No. 1 Tigers opened a 49-14 lead over the No. 4 Sooners at the half.
Burrow’s seven touchdown passes were the most in a half of a bowl game by any player in FBS history and tied for the most in a bowl game. Central Michigan’s Cooper Rush had seven against Western Kentucky in the 2014 Bahamas Bowl.
He rushed for an eighth touchdown to cap LSU’s opening drive of the second half, becoming the first player in FBS history responsible for eight TDs in a bowl game — also an SEC single-game record.
Burrow had more touchdowns than incompletions in the first 30 minutes against the Sooners, throwing for 403 yards on 21-for-27 passing. The Tigers piled up 497 yards of offense.
1 Related
Burrow and Tigers receiver Justin Jefferson hooked up for four touchdowns in the first half, covering 19, 35, 42 and 30 yards. Jefferson’s four touchdown catches were the most by a player in a Peach Bowl, a New Year’s Six game and a CFP semifinal.
Burrow added two more touchdowns to Terrace Marshall Jr. and another one to tight end Thaddeus Moss.
Burrow became the first player to throw seven touchdowns in a CFP game and the first in SEC history to throw at least five touchdowns in five games of a single season, and he set an LSU bowl record for touchdown passes (he shared the previous mark with four in a 40-32 win over UCF last season in the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl).
Burrow’s seven touchdown passes in the first half broke the Peach Bowl record, surpassing the previous mark of four shared by East Carolina’s Jeff Blake in 1991 and Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel in 2013.
With 55 touchdown passes (and counting), Burrow became the fifth player in FBS history with 5,000 passing yards and 50 touchdowns in a season. Fresno State’s Derek Carr (2013), Hawaii’s Colt Brennan (2006), Texas Tech’s B.J. Symons (2003) and Houston’s David Klinger (1990) were the only other players to do that.
Burrow is three touchdown passes shy of tying the FBS single-season record of 58 set by Brennan in 2006.
Credit: Source link