Joe Burrow Reflects On Frustrations At Ohio State: ‘Not A Lot Of People Had Confidence In Me’

Before Joe Burrow won a National Championship with LSU — and went on to become one of the NFL's highest-paid quarterbacks — he was a backup at Ohio State. And several years later, he's still not quite sure what was going on there.

Burrow red-shirted for the Buckeyes in 2015. Then, backing up J.T. Barrett, he attempted just 28 passes in six games in 2016 and 11 passes in five games in 2017. Overall, Burrow amassed less than 300 yards with only two touchdowns in Columbus.

Ohio State quarterbacks Joe Burrow and J.T. Barrett warm up before the Big Ten Championship game in 2017.

(Barbara J. Perenic / The Columbus Dispatch via USA TODAY Sports)

And with Dwayne Haskins set to become Ohio State's QB1 for the 2018 season, Burrow knew it was time to take his talents elsewhere.

"I didn't come here to sit on the bench for four years," Burrow said at the time. "I know I'm a pretty good quarterback. I want to play somewhere."

And that somewhere was LSU, where he went on to win a Natty and a Heisman Trophy. During his time with the Tigers, Burrow was also named a Unanimous All-American, the SEC Offensive Player of the Year, the AP and Sporting News College Football Player of the Year and earned a handful of other awards and accolades.

LSU Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron and quarterback Joe Burrow celebrate with the National Championship trophy.

(Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports)

Safe to say that transfer worked out for him.

In fairness, though, Urban Meyer's Buckeyes were doing just fine themselves. Ohio State went 35-5 with a Big Ten Championship while Burrow was riding the bench.

So Why Wasn't Joe Burrow Good Enough To Play At Ohio State?

He doesn't really know. 

"At Ohio State I was definitely questioning myself, because I thought, ‘I’m working so hard in the weight room, I’m playing really well in practice’ and I felt like nobody was really taking notice of that or seeing the improvement or how I was playing in practice," he said on a recent episode of The Pivot podcast.

He continued: "I was like, "Do I have a warped sense of myself and how I’m playing or what kind of quarterback I am?" That was definitely tough those three and half years. I had so much confidence in the work that I was putting in off the field and the growth that I was having, but I felt like not a lot of people had confidence in me at that point."

Fortunately for Burrow, plenty of people have confidence in him now. Prior to last season, the Cincinnati Bengals gave the Pro Bowler a five-year, $275 million contract extension. At $55 million per year, he's tied with Jacksonville's Trevor Lawrence and Green Bay's Jordan Love as the highest-paid QB in the league by yearly average.

"All I had, like we talked about earlier, was the confidence in myself and the work that I was putting in would eventually come to light and pay off and thank God it did."

Take that, Urban Meyer.