It’s always tough to follow a legend. Myles Brennan had the tall task of being the next LSU quarterback after Joe Burrow. Brennan’s first start as the Tigers’ QB1 ended in an upset loss to unranked Mississippi State.

While LSU fans are understandably frustrated, ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit is asking people to cut Brennan some slack.

On ESPN’s CFB Podcast with Herbstreit, David Pollack and Kevin Neghandi, Herbstreit compared Burrow’s prep heading into 2019 with Brennan’s situation in an atypical college football offseason.

“One thing about Joe Burrow,” Herbstreit said. “Sitting down with him last year, is he’s like, ‘Man, I spent four hours a day with (wide receiver) Ja’Marr Chase and (wide receiver Justin) Jefferson and Moss and Clyde Edwards-Helaire and (wide receiver Terrace) Marshall and we can do these routes in our sleep because of how much time we spent together in April and May and June and July. By the time we got to camp, I didn’t even care what coverage they were in. I knew where my guy was going, he knew where I was going. Full-field-progression read. Didn’t matter what coverage you were in. I had an answer on every single throw.’ …

“Now, poor Myles Brennan, who grew up in that state, dreamed of one day putting that uniform on, was an elite high school player. It’s not like he was a walk-on — this guy’s a great player. My reaction was not, ‘Oh, man, this guy’s not any good.’ It was more of, ‘If you needed more of a reason to appreciate who LSU was last year,’ this is back not to where they were system wise pre-2019. This is more of, ‘This is normal.’ This is a young quarterback who is hesitant, unsure and just waiting for that extra hitch or holding onto that ball just an extra second. That’s an incompletion, a tipped ball or an interception. Whereas Joe Burrow was, ‘Boom, boom, boom.’ His ability to process, ‘Boom, boom, boom, ball.’ Or, ‘Boom, boom, boom, boom, check down to Clyde Edwards-Helaire.’ Or, ‘Boom, boom, boom, they’ve got Clyde, I’ll take off (running) for another 15.’ And then you throw in the tempo, the defense, their heads were spinning and you just don’t see it.

“I want to give Myles Brennan and this offense a chance to just kind of get through a game or two. And you imagine the shoes that he stepped into, in that stadium? That is tough. And now you’ve got fans that are going to be like, ‘This guy sucks. I mean, what are we doing with this guy?’ And they need to just take a deep breath and be realistic. Unfortunately, they can’t do that. Fans can’t do that with what they saw last year. And it might not get, eventually, to that — they might get to where they’re executing better. But cut Myles Brennan some slack, man. That is a tough ask.”

Brennan and the Tigers will look to get back on track in Week 2 at Vanderbilt.

[H/T 247Sports]