Justin Fields beat Chris Robison, Florida Atlantic’s quarterback, handily in his first game as a Buckeye a year ago. He out-dueled Desmond Ridder, Peyton Ramsey, Brett Gabbert, Adrian Martinez, Brian Lewerke, Aidan Smith, Jack Coan, Tyrrell Pigrome, Johnny Langan, Sean Clifford, Shea Patterson and Coan once more in succession a year ago. This fall, his Ohio State team has gotten the better of squads led by Luke McCaffrey, Clifford, Noah Vedral, Michael Penix Jr., Payton Thorne and Ramsey.
Only one quarterback, in his two years and 20 games at Ohio State, has beaten him.
It’s the same guy who has kept him from a national championship. The same guy who has prevented him from holding the title of college football’s best quarterback. The same guy who grew up in Cartersville, Georgia, a 20-mile drive from his hometown of Kennesaw, Georgia. The same guy who he’s been constantly compared to dating back to their rankings as the top two overall recruits in the high school class of 2018.
It’s Trevor Lawrence.
With both assuredly heading to the NFL after this season concludes, Fields has only one more opportunity as a Buckeye to get the better of Lawrence in a head-to-head matchup. In a game seemingly destined to take place ever since Ohio State walked off the field following the devastating 29-23 Fiesta Bowl loss nearly a year ago, their will meet on Jan. 1 in the Sugar Bowl as both of their college careers wrap up.
In taking his team to play for its first national championship since the 2014 season, Fields can repay Lawrence for ending his first season as a Buckeye with a brutal loss by sending him out of Clemson and to the NFL with a loss of his own. Payback, one would imagine, would feel pretty good for the junior quarterback.
Fields has a tendency to downplay the noise around him. He lives alone with his dog, Uno, and listens to Summer Walker, Bryson Tiller and Drake before games to keep himself calm. He’s rarely outwardly boastful, preferring to keep his confidence quiet, and harps on controlling the controllables while out on the field just like a seasoned coach would tell him to. In answers to questions from reporters, he prefers not to put himself in hypothetical situations and doesn’t say anything out of turn about opponents.
He’s usually understated, and he likes it that way.
Still, whether he openly admits it or not, it has to eat at him that he’s been directly compared to Lawrence for the better part of a half-decade and has spent most of that time hearing people put the Clemson star quarterback ahead of him.
Way back to their time as five-star recruits out of the Peach State, Lawrence was the No. 1 overall recruit and Fields was just behind him at No. 2 overall. As true freshmen, Lawrence led Clemson to a national title while Fields backed up Jake Fromm and transferred to get the shot he thought he deserved. The next year, Lawrence’s Tigers got the better of Fields’ Buckeyes in their first-ever matchup against each other. The vast majority of 2021 NFL mock drafts have Lawrence as the top overall draftee with Fields slotted behind him as the second- or third-best available quarterback.
People who know him best tout his ferocious competitiveness. So, how could Fields not feel overjoyed to get another shot to prove himself in a mano-a-mano showdown with the man others continually compare him to? It’s only natural.
His Buckeyes will enter the game as the betting underdog, and some of that is due to his own past month-and-a-half.
By mid-November, Fields was the Heisman Trophy frontrunner. He became the favorite to win the award honoring college football’s best player thanks to his performance in Ohio State's first three games of the season, in which he had more touchdowns (13) than incompletions (11), with more than half of the balls that hit the turf being catchable. Then, things – both for himself and his team – started going off the rails.
The Maryland game scheduled to kick off on Nov. 14 got canceled. Fields threw three interceptions the next week in a seven-point home win against Indiana. Another game cancellation – this time, this one at Illinois – followed. Fields bounced back with a 17-for-24, 199-yard, two-touchdown performance in the win at Michigan State before the cancellation of the Michigan game. But on Saturday versus Northwestern, he completed just 12-of-27 passes for 114 yards with two interceptions in his least effective game as Ohio State’s starting quarterback.
“We've got one of the best quarterbacks in the country and he didn't have his best game yesterday, but he'll come back,” Day said Sunday on Big Ten Network. “He'll play well.”
To make matters more uncertain, he suffered what he believed to be a sprained thumb in the third quarter that left him barely able to throw the ball late in the game. Day said he’ll be “fine,” though it’s clearly fair to wonder how the injury could impact his throwing ability with just 12 days to heal. That can’t be overlooked. At the very least, his next two weeks of practices likely won't go down as planned. Similarly, his preparation for last year's game versus Clemson was affected by a sprained MCL.
“I think it's very hard for a college quarterback to play at a high level without practicing,” Day said in January. “I think if you're Aaron Rodgers and you've been doing it for X number of years, it's OK. But when you're (young), the timing and everything, it's very hard.”
He has another year of experience under his belt, sure, but to use Day’s words from 11 months ago, the junior is not exactly Rodgers yet. The thumb could alter how he’s able to get ready for Round 2 with Clemson.
Fields, however, was very clear to make sure those on the outside didn’t use the thumb as an excuse for his play versus the Wildcats – “It's just flat-out me. That's it. Me.” – and he won’t want to make that the underlying narrative going into the Sugar Bowl.
He just wants to get the better of Lawrence, once and for all, and send Ohio State to the national championship game.
Clemson is the hump the Buckeyes want so badly to get over as they near the finish line of what Day thinks could be one of the most amazing seasons in college football history. For Fields, that hump prominently features the Tigers’ quarterback he’s been sized up with for five-plus years and the one who he’ll inevitably continue to be compared to, even next year when they're both in the NFL, until he hangs up his cleats.
