Burrow: 'Going to be a Fun Chess Match' for the National Championship

Heisman Trophy winner and current LSU Tiger quarterback, Joe Burrow, discusses his thoughts on Brent Venables and why he believes the Clemson defense has some of the smartest players in college football.

Monday night’s national championship game between the No. 1 ranked LSU Tigers and the No. 3 ranked Clemson Tigers is loaded with star power on both sidelines. 

Clemson and LSU have elite playmakers at just about every position. Probably the most talked-about position is that of the quarterback. Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow gets ready to battle against the 2019 National Championship MVP Trevor Lawrence. 

Joe Burrow knows that both offenses have the ability to score against anyone and that’s why he tries to keep his focus on Clemson’s Defensive Coordinator Brent Venables and the Clemson defense.

“I feel like I'm going up against the defensive coordinator and the defense. You don't really think about the quarterback that's on the other side of the ball,” said Burrow. “You understand, when you're going against good offenses, you're going to have to score a little bit more. I think about it more as going against the defense.”

Steve Ensminger, LSU’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, told the media that he believes Brent Venables is the best defensive coordinator in the nation. Joe Burrow agrees and says that he feels it is because Brent Venables has recruited players smart enough to play every coverage in the book.

“They do everything. There's not a lot of teams that can get smart enough guys to play every coverage in the book or have every blitz in the playbook. They do it,” said Burrow. “You can tell how well-coached they are because while they do all these things, they're not unsound in what they do.

It's going to be a challenge for us to see what they're doing, trying to exploit it.”

Brent Venables has done something this year that many did not expect. He lost seven starters from a top 5 defense and still managed to develop his current defense into another top 5 defense in the country. 

Three of those seven starters were defensive linemen who were drafted in the first round of last year’s NFL draft. Instead of taking a step backward statistically, Venables' redesigned his scheme to work out of a 3-3-5 base formation, and actually improved in many areas from last year.

Burrow knows that he will have to be disciplined to stay one step ahead.

“I'm going to have to really read my keys and trust my eyes and be disciplined with my eyes to understand what they're trying to do,” said Burrow. “They'll bring blitzes and play four, five different coverages on the back end.”

“They're going to have something new for us because he's so good at what he does. We're going to have to manage it the best way that we can. He's going to get us every once in a while because he's so good. We just have to get him more than he gets us.

“Coach Venables does a great job. I think it's going to be a fun chess match on Monday.”