LSU's Joe Burrow, Grant Delpit Talk National Championship, Improvement on Defense

When it comes to postseason play, no matter what level—high school, college or the pros—the common theme is that teams want to be playing their best football at the end of the season. After blowout wins over Georgia in the SEC Championship and then Oklahoma in the Peach Bowl, LSU is playing its best ball as the National Championship approaches.

And quarterback Joe Burrow knows it.

"I think our team as a whole is playing our best football. Our defense has become one of the best in the country, and they've worked really hard to get there," Burrow said. "I think as an offense obviously there's still some room to improve, but I think we're very explosive right now, and our O-line is playing their best ball of the season."

When Burrow mentions the defense, junior safety Grant Delpit agrees that the unit has come a long way since surrendering 31 second half points to Ole Miss on Nov. 16.

"I think after the Ole Miss game, it was kind of a turnaround for us," Delpit said. "It wasn't our best performance, and I think we sat down as a defense and just saw what we did wrong, understood that some teams might try to make those plays and run it against us again. And I think we just kind of lit a fire and started playing LSU football after that. So hopefully this last game we can keep it going."

The Tigers held Arkansas to 20 points, Texas A&M to seven points, Georgia to 10 points and Oklahoma to a season-low 28 points in the final four games of the season. In those final three games, the defense allowed 230 yards rushing on 79 carries, a 2.9 yard per carry average that would've ranked fifth nationally in 2019.

Through the air the Tigers have allowed quarterbacks Kellen Mond, Jake Fromm and Jalen Hurts to complete 47-of-111 passes (42%) for 547 yards, one touchdown and six interceptions. It's a secondary that is playing out of its mind with possibly its toughest test of the season on deck.

Going against Trevor Lawrence and a Clemson offense riddled with weapons all over the field, whether it's Travis Etienne, Justyn Ross or Tee Higgins, will be difficult in its own right. But it was Lawrence's ability to use his legs that left Delpit impressed after the Fiesta Bowl win over Ohio State.

"First of all, I was watching the Ohio State game some, he runs the ball for a seven-yard touchdown, it looked pretty fast, so he's definitely a great all-around player," Delpit said. "People don't give him credit for his running ability. So we're definitely going to take that into consideration. And also just the amount of weapons they have, guys like Etienne, big, tall receivers like Tee Higgins, they'll go up and get the ball. It's going to be definitely a fun matchup, going to be a fun game."

Delpit attributes some of the success and improvement the defense has made over the year to going up against Burrow and the high-powered juggernaut that is the LSU offense.

"In camp we knew that they were going to be good," Delpit said. "We knew that either they were going to be really good or we were going to be bad because they were putting up a lot of yards, a lot of points on us in all the scrimmages."

While Delpit and the defense will be scheming to find holes in the Clemson offense over the next few weeks, Burrow and company will be looking for ways to move the ball against the Clemson offense.

Burrow said the intelligence on Clemson's defense combined with its ability to switch coverages pre-snap will be tough to keep up with but that film study will be as important as ever over the next 10 days.

"You can tell that they have 11 really smart guys," Burrow said. "They do a lot of different things on defense, and they have a really good coach that makes it difficult for me and my eyes to look—pre-snap it'll look the same and they'll go to cover-two and cover-three on the same look. It'll be tough for me. I'll have to do a lot of film study to understand what they're trying to do."

One of the reasons LSU has been so successful on the offensive side of the ball has been the seamless conversion to the spread offense, fueled by the hiring of Joe Brady away from the Saints.

Burrow was asked about the similarities in the Saints offense and LSU's offense, saying he studied Drew Brees in the offseason religiously. Burrow focused on the footwork and eye movement Brees is so good at to keep defenses guessing.

"Yeah, I've studied that offense all offseason," Burrow said. "That's basically what we do. We do a lot of the same stuff with coach Joe coming from there. So yeah, I watched a lot of Drew, a lot of the Saints in the offseason to kind of figure out his footwork and his eyes, certain concepts."

With the final game of the season in New Orleans, Burrow is excited to put on one last show in the state where he revived his career. At the same time, Burrow said the main key for him and a lot of the players who are from Louisiana will be to stick to the routines that got them all to this point.

"I'm very excited, but a game like this you just have to stay in your routine and don't stray from it," Burrow said. "You can really pump yourself up and get a little too excited, but I'm just going to stay in my routine, do what I've been doing, and treat it like any other week."