The Joe Burrow Touchdown Bracket Final Four: Part Two

Semifinal No. 2. Yesterday 3rd and 17 continued its dominant stretch and advanced easily to Thursday’s final. We’ve got one more vote before we have to select a winner so let’s get to it. Who’s moving on to the championship vote?

No. 1: Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s wheel route vs. Alabama

Why it should advance:

Because I’ve never audibly gasped during a sports moment like I did when Burrow found Clyde Edwards-Helaire all alone in the Alabama end zone. This is what, I believe, Motley Crue’s “Kickstart My Heart” is describing. This was a kind of leap out you seat, yell “OH SHIT” feel like you just died moment that for the life of me I can’t remember ever feeling.

Webster defines nirvana as “a place or state of oblivion to care, pain or external reality.” This play for me is nirvana. This isn’t just holding a massive lead over a rival in their place, this is finally making vanquishing the beast that has tortured you for a decade. It’s the climax of all the dumb, unlucky frankly stupid things that don’t typically happen to Alabama: Tua fumbling without being touched, Trevon Diggs falling flat on his face, Bama’s punter literally getting hit in the face by the ball a missed extra poi-oh wait that always happens to them.

Alabama has made life hell for LSU the last decade. One win doesn’t undo the stretch of eight straight losses, but LSU started repaying the debt on November 9, 2019 and that final strike to Edwards-Helaire was an exclamation mark unlike any other.

Put it this way, any play that can make an Alabama fan make this reaction ought to win.

No. 1: Ja’Marr Chase’s knockout punch vs. Florida

Why it should advance:

Because nowadays, any LSU athlete who has a key role in securing a win over Florida in any sport ought to be given an Oscar for best leading man or woman in a motion picture. Sure Alabama may be LSU’s biggest rival in football, but for my money Florida is LSU’s biggest rival across all sports: football, baseball, softball, gymnastics all come to mind.

This game was Florida’s first trip back to Tiger Stadium since the infamous 2016 season with the whole Hurricane Matthew fiasco, the kerfuffle between the teams prior to the rescheduled game and Derrius Guice tragically going the wrong way to end it. LSU made two consecutive trips to The Swamp, winning in 2017, but losing in 2018. Why do I remember LSU lost that 2018 game? Because every Gator fan on Earth spent the whole offseason and the weeks leading up to this game reminding me about it.

But as they say, the past is the past and LSU made sure to be about that action this time around. It was a close game throughout and in the fourth quarter Florida had the ball deep in LSU territory looking to tie the game at 35. That was until Kyle Trask decided to violate one of the most sacred laws of nature: throwing at Derek Stingley Jr.

LSU made sure to make Florida pay for the costly turnover, and Burrow landed the game-sealing throw to Chase who was sprung free thanks to a clever design by Joe Brady. Chase ended the game and Tiger Stadium made sure to let Florida know that it does indeed suck to be a Florida Gator.