Joe Burrow grew up in Ohio, graduated from the state's flagship university and is the quarterback for one of its two NFL teams. It should come as no surprise, then, that he considers himself a Buckeye even though he transferred to LSU to continue his football career.

"I'm definitely still a Buckeye," he told reporters Thursday. "I graduated from there."

Burrow arrived at Ohio State as a 4-star prospect in the class of 2015, per 247Sports' composite rankings.

He was competing for the backup job behind the entrenched J.T. Barrett in 2017 but suffered a broken hand. That allowed Dwayne Haskins to move ahead of Burrow on the depth chart.

It ended up being a critical injury because Barrett later suffered his own injury during the rivalry game against Michigan. Haskins entered and rallied the Buckeyes to a comeback victory, essentially cementing himself as the starter for 2018 when Barrett would no longer be on the team.

Perhaps if Burrow did not break his hand, he would have been the one to come in and start building his Ohio State legacy.

But Burrow transferred to LSU and won a national championship with the Tigers during the 2019 campaign. It's not like Haskins was a bad choice for the Buckeyes, though, as he set the Big Ten record for passing yards and passing touchdowns during a dominant 2018 season while Burrow was inconsistent in his first year at LSU.

The Buckeyes also landed Georgia transfer Justin Fields for the 2019 season after Haskins went to the NFL. And Ohio State nearly faced Burrow and LSU in the National Championship Game but lost to Clemson amid a couple of questionable calls in the College Football Playoff semifinals.

Burrow has been much better in the NFL than Haskins, which has fueled discussion about how things played out at Ohio State.

The No. 1 pick of the 2020 draft is now the face of the Bengals and has led them to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1988 campaign. They will face the Rams on Feb. 13.

That has surely further endeared Burrow to football fans in Ohio—at least the ones who don't cheer for the Cleveland Browns—and he made sure to let everyone know he still considers himself a Buckeye.