LSU goes back to New Orleans for another title shot

James Moran/Special to the American Press

LSU Tigers quarterback Joe Burrow (9) gets his offensive player of the game award during the 2019 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, December 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Lake Charles American Press, Kirk Meche)

Kirk Meche

ATLANTA — Advancing in the College Football Playoff isn’t supposed to be easy, but Joe Burrow and the nation’s most explosive offense turned the Peach Bowl into just another record-setting stroll through the park.

Burrow threw seven touchdowns in the first half, four of which went to Justin Jefferson. Burrow and Jefferson rewrote both the LSU, Peach Bowl and CFP record books in less than a half of football.

So much for a post-Heisman hangover.

No. 1 LSU racked up 49 points in the first half and romped its way to a rollicking 63-28 rout over No. 4 Oklahoma in a CFP semifinal on Saturday. LSU will move on to New Orleans and play either Ohio State or Clemson for a national championship on Jan. 13 in New Orleans.

“To be honest, it wasn’t my sharpest game,” Burrow said without a hint of sarcasm. “This guy (Jefferson) was bailing me out on a couple of throws that I had missed. Guys like Ja’Marr (Chase) and Terrace (Marshall) were bailing me out with misreads and being late with the football.

“That’s the kind of team we have. Somebody doesn’t have their best game, the other guys step up.”

LSU (14-0) showed no signs of nerves or anxiety in its first playoff appearance. Ed Orgeron’s team got off to another fast start and decimated an overmatched opponent with surgical precision. Burrow & Co. played as free and loose as they have all season.

Up next will be a chance to capture the program’s fourth national championship and first since 2007. It’ll be the fourth time since 2003 that an LSU team plays for the national championship, and strangely enough, all four of those games were played in New Orleans.

“The state of Louisiana is going to be on fire,” Orgeron smiled.

Consider this to put LSU’s domination in context: Oklahoma quarterback Jalen Hurts finished second to Burrow in the Heisman voting. In the first half of this game, Burrow threw more touchdowns (7) than Hurts had completions (5).

Burrow was removed from the game with 9:30 remaining having completed 29 of 39 passes for 493 yards and those seven touchdowns. He added a rushing touchdown in the second half to cap a string of seven consecutive touchdown drives that began once Oklahoma (12-2) briefly tied the score at 7-7.

Jefferson finished with a whopping 14 catches for 227 and four scores. Oklahoma committed extra defenders to covering Chase all game long, and the Burrow-to-Jefferson connection repeatedly made them pay for it.

“When someone is hot, why not keep going to them?” Jefferson said. “So Joe just kept finding me on the field, just making those big plays.”

You would need a team of statisticians to keep track of all the records Burrow, Jefferson and the LSU offense broke, and yet it felt like just another day at the office.

“I feel like we’re getting better every week,” said Marshall, who hauled in two touchdowns of his own. “In practice we make sure we’re doing the little things right and we make sure we clean up our mistakes before the week to come. That’s the strength of this offense.”

The offense blew the game wide open, but coordinator Dave Aranda’s defense deserves its share of the credit. LSU forced three-and-outs on three of Oklahoma’s first four possessions, allowing the offense to race out to a 21-7 lead in the first quarter.

The key, Aranda said, was containing the edges in order to slow Hurts down as a runner. That allowed the pass rush to harass him in obvious passing situations. Defensive MVP K’Lavon Chaisson led the way with two sacks.

LSU held the nation’s second-best offense well below its season averages in points and yardage, but Aranda was adamant that his unit still has a long way to go with one game remaining. LSU led 35-7 at one point in the second quarter.

“This game was almost like a caricature of how we played all season,” Aranda said. “You look up at the scoreboard and see 28 points, but at one point they had like 100 yards and we were up by 30. The fight is with human nature. The fight is with offensive guys coming off the field happy, but that’s not you. That can’t be you. You have to be (ticked) off. You have to be focused. I still have a lot of work to do.”

That mind-set is indicative of how LSU as a whole has approached what’s turning into a story-book season. LSU has hit opponents like a runaway freight train ever since a thrilling 46-41 win at Alabama on Nov. 9, and since that game, the Tigers have appeared rather businesslike in victory.

“You’re going to see us celebrate a little bit,” Burrow said, “but our end goal is in two weeks.”