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Joe Burrow capped his record-shattering season by passing for five touchdowns and running for one to lead No. 1 LSU to a 42-25 victory over No. 3 Clemson in the College Football Playoff championship game on Monday night in New Orleans.

Burrow, who won the Heisman Trophy by a record margin, completed 31 of 49 passes for 463 yards and rushed 14 times for 58 yards. He finished the season with NCAA records of 60 touchdown passes and 65 touchdowns accounted for, breaking the marks of 58 and 63, respectively, set by Hawaii’s Colt Brennan in 2006.

LSU completed the first 15-0 season in school history in its first trip to the CFP, which was in its sixth year. The Bayou Bengals won their fourth national championship and first since 2007.



Defending national champion Clemson, which had won two of the last three national titles, finished 14-1 after seeing its 29-game winning streak end.

Biletnikoff Award winner J’Marr Chase caught nine of Burrow’s passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns.

Burrow outdueled Clemson sophomore Trevor Lawrence, the Offensive MVP of last season’s title-game victory over Alabama who lost for the first time in 26 games as a college starter. Lawrence completed 18 of 37 passes for 234 yards and didn’t throw for a touchdown, though he did run 1 yard for the game’s first score.

LSU led 28-17 at halftime, but Travis Etienne’s 3-yard touchdown run and a two-point conversion pass from Lawrence to Amari Rodgers on Clemson’s first possession of the third quarter cut the deficit to three points.

Burrow threw a 4-yard touchdown pass to Thaddeus Moss to give LSU a 35-25 lead after three quarters, and he tossed a 24-yarder to Terrace Marshall Jr. with 12:08 left for the game’s final margin.

After Lawrence’s touchdown run midway through the first quarter, Burrow threw a 52-yard touchdown pass to Chase to tie the score at the end of the first quarter.

Clemson’s B.T. Potter made a 52-yard field goal, the longest in CFP finals history, and Tee Higgins ran 36 yards on a reverse for touchdown that increased Clemson’s lead to 17-7, marking LSU’s biggest deficit of the season.

Burrow ran 3 yards for a touchdown and threw touchdown passes of 14 yards to Chase and 6 yards to Moss to give LSU an 11-point halftime lead.

–Field Level Media (@FieldLevelMedia)