Ed Orgeron Makes Bold Declaration Involving Cincinnati Bengals Star Joe Burrow

CINCINNATI — Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow led LSU to a 15-0 season in 2019. He won the Heisman Trophy, LSU won the National Championship and he was taken by the Bengals with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Former LSU head coach Ed Orgeron recently compared Texas quarterback Arch Manning to Burrow.

"I had an opportunity to go to Texas and speak at their clinic," Orgeron said on the 'Pardon My Take' podcast. "And I watched practice. Now, we knew Arch Manning as a young kid from Louisiana. He liked Joe Brady. We watched him [during the recruiting process]. But I watched his practice [at Texas]. And I'll say this conservatively—and we recruited [current LSU quarterback] Garrett [Nussmeier]— Garrett's a great player. ... but Arch is as close to—or maybe as good as—Joe [Burrow] as I've seen. And I've never said that about anybody."

That's major praise for Manning, a quarterback that has only thrown 95 passes at the collegiate level.

Burrow transferred from Ohio State to LSU in 2018, but he broke out in 2019. The former LSU star had one of the best seasons from a quarterback in college football history. He completed 76.3% of his passes for 5,671 yards, 60 touchdowns and posted a 202.0 quarterback rating. He led the country in all of those stats.

Burrow threw seven touchdown passes in the first half of LSU's 63-28 win over Oklahoma in the College Football Playoff. Then he led the Tigers past Tee Higgins and Clemson 42-24 in the National Championship Game.

Manning is a favorite to win the Heisman Trophy and is certainly on everyone's radar as a possible future top pick in the NFL Draft.

That's the major difference between Burrow and Manning. No one expected Burrow to do what he did in 2019 until he did it. Meanwhile, expectations are sky high for Manning entering the 2025 season.

Burrow and the Bengals are hoping to get off to a hot start to the year and win their season opener for the first time since 2021. They play in Cleveland on Sept 7. Manning's Longhorns play the defending National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes on August 30 in Columbus.

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