James Franklin was THIS CLOSE to having Justin Fields as his quarterback.
When the No. 2 overall player in the 2018 recruiting class committed to Franklin and the Nittany Lions – doing so in large part because of the raucous White Out environment that was absent on Saturday night – it would have brought a transcendent talent to State College.
Instead, Franklin has now had to game plan for him two years in a row, and on Saturday night the future top-five NFL draft pick tied his career high with four passing touchdowns to pair with 318 yards on 28-of-34 passing and a 199.7 quarterback rating.
Fields is probably the best quarterback Franklin has coached against in his career, and when asked that exact question – have you ever faced against a better quarterback than Justin Fields? – Franklin side-stepped it and instead deferred to the overall talent deployed by the Buckeyes.
“I'm not sure,” Franklin said. “He is talented, and it's not just Justin, it's all the pieces around him as well. I think we got a pretty good pass rush. We weren't able to get to him a whole lot tonight so they protected him well. They did a good job of mixing the run and the pass. They're very talented on the perimeter and the wide receiver positions as well – all the things that we knew.”
Franklin's not wrong.
When you have a receiver duo like Chris Olave (seven catches, 120 yards, two touchdowns) and Garrett Wilson (11 catches, 111 yards), a former borderline five-star tight end prospect in Jeremy Ruckert who grabs two touchdown catches and a running game being led by perhaps the nation's best offensive line (one that finishes with for more than 200 yards led by Master Teague's 110 yards and one score), there's certainly an absurd amount of talent to have to stop.
But there's also the ridiculous throws Fields was making all night and this Houdini play:
Easy. Hes a magician.@justnfields #GoBuckeyes https://t.co/QbOLz1GGmw
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) November 1, 2020
So Fields probably could have gotten more credit there.
Nonetheless, Franklin and Co. knew what they were up against coming into a game against the No. 3-ranked team in the country that has national title aspirations.
”We had tremendous respect for them coming into the game,” Franklin said. “But, obviously, tonight we weren't able to make any plays. We had a few chances for some big plays. Had a chance for an interception on the sideline. You've gotta capitalize on opportunities against a team like that. We weren't able to get the tackles for loss, they were always falling forward. We weren't able to get the sacks or the turnovers.”
Franklin also explained his decision to go for it on fourth down in the first quarter, knowing that it would be next to impossible to stop Ohio State's lethal offense.
“We wanted to be aggressive,” Franklin said. “That's why we went for it early. We went into this game knowing that we were gonna have to score points, score touchdowns. So we wanted to go for it as much as we possibly could on fourth-down situations.”
