re: A comprehensive feature on Joe Burrow and his Athens roots

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Baton Rouge’s feelings on Burrow

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From the time that Joey came in here, in regular phys-ed class, he had a way to cross all those different boundaries. And even more, he was very sympathetic to those that weren’t as athletically gifted or affluent. He had a little bit of a soft spot for those guys and would always pick them to be on his team.”

Like any gym teacher worth their whistle, Adams likes to keep teams even. But when they did three-on-three basketball, Burrow asked to choose his team.

“He picked two kids that are probably the least athletic in his class,” Adams said. “Well, they win every game.”

So the next game, Adams changed the rules. Burrow couldn’t score two baskets in a row.

“He’s tossing the ball off,” Adams said. “Nobody sets picks in middle school. He’s setting picks, this, that and the other. They clean house, right? They win every game.”

Adams smiled as he recalled this story, clear as day almost a decade later. The next time Burrow’s team played, he wasn’t allowed to score at all.

“And, by God, he got those two kids to play their butts off,” he said. “And he’s setting screens and giving them little cherry-pick shots off each side of the basket. They won every game.”

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Burrow threw for 4,437 yards and 63 touchdowns his senior year. His 11,428 passing yards are the fourth-highest in Ohio history, and his 156 touchdowns are the third-highest, behind the famous (in Ohio football circles anyway) Mauk brothers, Maty and Ben.

In 2014, Athens High scored a state-record 861 points, 57.4 a game, just 4 points shy of the school’s 22-3 basketball team. Yes, Burrow led that team in scoring with 19.3 points per game.

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I remember there were legit teams where these kids would put Sharpies in their socks, so when we’re in the handshake lines at the end of the games, Joe could sign their gloves and stuff,” Saltzman said. “I was like, this is absurd.”

“We were always kind of chasing the perfect game, where we’d score every drive and complete every ball,” White said. “It sounds crazy to say, but that was really the way he prepared and it rubbed off on everybody.”

Did it ever happen?

“We had a few where we scored every possession,” he said.

Williams, who played running back at Athens, could only remember one time when his quarterback was flustered. It came during a playoff game their senior season.

“The only time he’d ever been confused on what signal our coach was giving, I got confused,” Williams said. “I was like, Joe doesn’t know, then maybe I don’t know,” Williams said. “And the coach was freaking out, ‘Why aren’t you all running the play?’

“And Joe was like, ‘Dude, I don’t know what he’s talking about.’ I said, all right, I’m going to run a little swing and just throw it to me. He snaps the ball, looks at me, and then runs 70 yards for a touchdown.”

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Before the year, Joe and Trae called everyone together,” Adam Luehrman said.

“I remember Joe was like what’s our goal for this season,” Ryan Luehrman said. “And I said regional championship. He asked, ‘Why not further?’ And I was silent. You got me there. Yeah. Why are we limiting ourselves?”

Adams had already set up a test that would push his team. That spring, he got a call from Reno Saccoccia, coach of the Steubenville High Big Red, who was looking for a midseason opponent. If Adams’s team wanted a challenge, here it was: In the previous 10 seasons, Steubenville had a record of 115-16 and two state titles.



“Steubenville was a measuring stick for us,” Saltzman said. “Let’s see if we’re the real deal. We’ve been playing in southeast Ohio killing people, let’s go play an historic program and show all of Ohio what we’re made of.”



Athens still led by two going into the fourth quarter, then scored 22 unanswered points as Burrow threw a 43-yard touchdown to Adam Luerhman before scoring on a 48-yard keeper to seal a 58-42 win. In the crucible of his high school career, Burrow threw for 360 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 83 yards and two more scores.

“I don’t know if it was Joe’s best night numbers-wise,” White said, “but it was probably his most dominant performance in high school.”

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“I mean, honestly, you could tell he was on another level,” Sexton said, echoing a refrain you hear from practically every quarterback who had to match up against Burrow.

Athens had to come back from a 17-7 halftime deficit against two-time defending state champ St. Vincent-St. Mary to make it to the 2014 state championship game. SVSM quarterback Dom Davis looks back and remembers how calm Burrow and Athens remained coming out for the third quarter.

“You had that feeling of impending doom coming out of halftime,” he said. “Maybe we just pissed him off. The second half was all him. It was a one-man wrecking crew.”

Davis said during the game he stood on the sideline waiting for Burrow to make a mistake, to throw off his back foot into coverage, something. But even when Burrow did make a play under duress, Davis remembers him putting the ball where only his receiver could catch it. Burrow would pick apart a defense with quick slants, screens and hitches “and then all of a sudden, they throw a 30-yard bomb and it would be a completed pass.”

Athens won, 34-31.

“It’s an hour bus ride home,” Davis said. “And I was thinking that dude will end up winning the Heisman and be the first pick of the draft,” Davis said. “I thought he was that good.”

Now, five years later, he watches LSU games like everyone else, appreciating what he saw then, what he sees now and whether he’s going to prove prophetic.

“I played against Joe freaking Burrow,” he said.

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On Nov. 30, through 12 games, Burrow set the SEC single-season record for passing (4,336 yards), tied the mark for passing touchdowns (44) and still threw only six picks. His accuracy has been even more impressive than his totals — his completion percentage has shot from 58.7 percent in 2018 to a nation-leading 78.3 percent this fall.

“It literally looks like high school football in the SEC, which is bananas,” said Saltzman, who attended a number of games in person this season. “This guy is literally throwing the same completion percentage in the SEC as he did in high school against the TVC. It’s hilarious.”

Crazy as this seems, are the people who knew him then surprised by the heights he’s reached now? No, not really.

“He’s a genius,” said Williams, who texts regularly with Burrow and his other Athens teammates. “He knows everything. These are the same things that I’ve seen him do when I was literally right there beside him.”

“I remember the first summer I came to Georgetown,” Saltzman said. ”It was Joe’s redshirt freshman year at Ohio State, and we were talking about good people we played with. My friends from New Jersey played against guys like Jabrill Peppers. I was like, ‘You know what guys, I’ll tell you what right now, the quarterback I played with is going to win the Heisman before it’s all said and done.’ They were like ‘Nah, no shot, who is this kid?’

I was like ‘Just wait on it.'”

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Burrow came into a proud program without much of a college reputation.

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