Louisville’s Lamar Jackson (8) runs for one of his four touchdowns against Florida State.
After University of Louisville sophomore quarterback Lamar Jackson accounted for 13 total touchdowns and 1,015 yards of total offense against Charlotte and Syracuse, many observers asked, “What will he do against a real defense?”
On Saturday, Sept. 17, against No. 2 Florida State, the nation found out.
On a day when ESPN’s College Gameday came to Louisville for the first time ever, Jackson torched the Seminoles for 362 yards and five total touchdowns. Jackson completed 13 of 21 passes, with one interception, for 216 yards and a touchdown, and ran 17 times for 146 yards and four TDs. His season numbers to date stand at 50-for-83 passing for 913 yards and eight TDs, with two picks, and 49 carries for 464 yards and 10 TDs.
Louisville’s 63-20 victory marked the first time ever the Seminoles had yielded 60 points in a game. The 43-point hammering was the worst suffered by the nation’s second-ranked team since No. 1 Army flattened No. 2 Notre Dame 48-0 in 1945.
Jackson’s Cardinals lead the nation in scoring offense at 65 points per game, third best in NCAA football history through three games. Louisville has opened the season with three consecutive 60-point games. The 1998 Cards–for whom current U of L head coach Bobby Petrino served as offensive coordinator–and the Petrino-led 2005 Cards are the only other Cardinals teams to break 60 points three times in a season, not in succession.
Jackson himself has made it look so effortless, especially in the game against Syracuse when he completed one of the most spectacular plays of the season by hurdling a Syracuse defender and abruptly cutting to his right to tightrope the sideline for a nine-yard touchdown.
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Lamar Jackson comes down after jumping over a Syracuse defender.
Jackson’s eye-popping stats have drawn attention across the nation, not solely on Planet Red. As of Monday morning, Vegas oddsmakers had him as the odds-on favorite to win the Heisman Trophy. If the Downtown Athletic Club extends the invitation, Jackson would become the first Cardinals football player ever to attend the Heisman presentation.
That being said, one of the people least impressed with his performance is the man himself. When interviewed on the field after Saturday’s game, Jackson lauded his teammates while rating his own performance as “a D.” He elaborated, saying that by his standards, any possession that ends without a touchdown has failed. He also was displeased at throwing an end-zone interception immediately after U of L’s Jaire Alexander returned a punt 61 yards to the Seminoles’ 17-yard line. Alexander took back an earlier punt for a 69-yard touchdown.
Full disclosure here: I am an unabashed lifelong Louisville fan, who has loyally suffered through a lot of bad football since 1964. I have also watched some of the best quarterbacks almost no one outside the Louisville metropolitan area has ever heard of, including Benny Russell, John Madeya, Stefan LeFors, Chris Redman, and three Brohms — brothers Brian and Jeff, and dad Oscar.
Redman threw for more than 12,000 yards from 1996 to ’99, and holds most of Louisville’s career passing records. His passing marks may outlast Jackson, but total offense may be a different question if the Cards’ current QB stays healthy and plays four seasons at U of L. It’s hard to imagine Jackson maintaining his current pace of 459 total yards per game for the entire season, but if he does, he would finish the regular season with 5,508 yards of total offense.
Some perspective: in 13 games last season, Louisville as a team gained 5,409 yards. In 12 games, just seven of them starts, Jackson accounted for 2,800 yards and 23 total touchdowns. Teddy Bridgewater holds the current school record for total offense in a season with 4,048 yards in 2013. Redman holds the per-game average record, 400.9 in 1998. Both of those individual marks could conceivably fall by the time U of L’s postseason concludes.
Jackson’s current career total of 4,177 yards has him 318 shy of 10th-place Browning Nagle. Jackson’s 278.5 career yards per game stands second to Redman’s 288.8.
Like many fans, I used to watch even meaningless Chicago Bulls games on television back in the Michael Jordan era simply because if I sat there long enough, by game’s end I would see Michael do something I’d have sworn wasn’t humanly possible. Jackson, with his uncanny balance and legitimate 4.4-second speed in the 40-yard dash, holds that kind of potential every time he takes the field. Witness the hurdle play against Syracuse and his 47-yard touchdown run against Florida State that ended with a ridiculous spin move.
And the scariest thing? Jackson can get better. His accuracy can improve, as can his reads — he failed to see some wide-open receivers Saturday, and overthrew Jaylen Smith 15 yards beyond the closest Seminole defender on the Cards’ first series. He also needs to cultivate better judgment on when to slide and when to head out of bounds after he runs.
Even the former Atlanta Falcons standout Michael Vick is among the many who are convinced. In a widely-recirculated tweet, Vick, the erstwhile gold standard for dual-threat quarterbacks, said Jackson “is 5 (times) better than I was at V(irginia) Tech. Enough said!” That may not be a huge exaggeration, given that Jackson can outrun many of his favorite targets — and Louisville’s wide receivers are not that slow, either.
In an interview on Ramsey and Rutherford in the Afternoon on Louisville radio station WLCL (93.9 the Ville), ESPN.com’s Andrea Adelson said she found herself searching for new superlatives to adequately describe Jackson. Her problem seems likely to become an epidemic soon — Jackson stands at the verge of becoming his only frame of reference.