Everybody knows Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields is one of the best players in the country. So far in 2020, he looks like he’s even better than the Heisman finalist version we saw last season.
The junior hit on 24-of-28 throws for 314 yards and five touchdowns with another score on the ground. Garrett Wilson (6 receptions, 104 yards, TD) and Chris Olave (5 receptions, 64 yards, 2 TD) were his top targets but he did spread it around hitting nine different receivers.  Â
Fields was just absurdly good in the first half, going 15-of-17 for 232 yards and three scores. He showcased sensational footwork in both buying time to throw or wheeling and dealing on designed rollouts.Â
Through three games, Fields has 11 touchdown passes and 11 incompletions. Seems good.Â
With the running game doing little to instill fear in opposing defenses, Fields just keeps throwing strikes. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the run/pass balance evolves in the event Ohio State plays an elite opponent and/or finds itself in a close game, shootout or otherwise. Â
All the young man is doing is completing a ridiculous 85.7 percent of his passes, throwing gobs of touchdowns and keeping the ball away from the other team (no interceptions). It’s not like he’s throwing a low volume of high percentage throws. He’s averaging over 11 yards per completion. Maybe the most unbelievable stat of all is that through three games the OSU gunslinger has as many incompletions as touchdowns (11).
Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields Heisman odds, according to several sites, have increased. When news broke about Trevor Lawrence’s positive COVID-19 test, his odds dropped. After the games on Saturday, Lawrence dropped even further according to some sites. Another missed game next week against Notre Dame will probably not help his case, either. We wait to see what BetMGM‘s new odds will be, but we are starting to get a picture of potential changes.
Taking over in first place is a tie between Justin Fields and Mac Jones on some sites. On others, Jones is slightly ahead of Fields. As long as Fields keeps performing at the level he has during the first two games, he should stay near the top. Fields is throwing at an astounding 87.3% completion rate, 594 yards and 6 touchdowns, which is vaulting him to the top of the boards. Below the top three is BYU quarterback Zach Wilson, Alabama receiver DeVonta Smith, and Florida quarterback Kyle Trask, but they are seen as long-shots at this point.
WHO IS JUSTIN FIELDS
Justin Skyler Fields (born March 5, 1999) is an American football quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes. Fields began his career with Georgia in 2018 before transferring to Ohio State in 2019.
Fields attended Harrison High School in Kennesaw, Georgia. In two years as a starter for Harrison, he totaled 4,187 passing yards, 41 passing touchdowns, 2,096 rushing yards and 28 rushing touchdowns. In the summer before his senior year in 2017, he attended the Elite 11 quarterback competition and was named MVP of the event. Late in his senior year, in a game that was nationally televised on ESPN, he suffered a broken finger that required season ending surgery. After his senior season, he was named Mr. Georgia Football by the Touchdown Club of Atlanta, as well as first-team all-state. In addition to football, Fields was also a standout baseball player for Harrison High.
Fields was rated as a five-star recruit and was the highest rated dual-threat quarterback in the class of 2018 by ESPN, Rivals.com, and 247Sports.com. ESPN listed him as the top recruit overall, while Rivals and 247Sports ranked him second behind pro-style quarterback Trevor Lawrence. He was the second highest rated recruit overall in the 247Sports Composite, which aggregates the ratings of the major recruiting services.
On October 6, 2017, Fields committed to the University of Georgia to play college football after withdrawing a previous commitment to play for Penn State.
His senior year was documented in the Netflix series QB1: Beyond the Lights, created by Peter Berg. Iowa State commit Re-al Mitchell (who later transferred to Temple) and Wake Forest commit Sam Hartman were also featured during the season.
On January 4, 2019, Fields announced his intent to transfer to Ohio State. Fields, who would normally be required to sit out for one year due to NCAA transfer rules, sought a waiver to be able to play immediately for Ohio State.[15] Fields enlisted the help of attorney Thomas Mars, who helped secure immediate eligibility for several transfers from Ole Miss in 2018, including quarterback Shea Patterson. Mars and Fields argued that Fields should be granted a waiver for immediate eligibility due to an NCAA guideline that waives the waiting period for athletes with “documented mitigating circumstances that are outside the student-athlete’s control and directly impact the health, safety and well-being of the student-athlete.” Fields was subject to an incident at Georgia in which a Bulldogs baseball player used a racial slur against Fields. This was believed to be the main incident constituting Fields’ claim of “mitigating circumstances”, although the full contents of the waiver request were never made public. On February 8, 2019, Fields was granted immediate eligibility for the 2019 season by the NCAA.
Fields recorded a successful season with the Buckeyes, where he finished third in Heisman Trophy voting. He finished with 3,273 passing yards, 41 passing touchdowns, and three interceptions to go along with 484 rushing yards and ten rushing touchdowns. He helped lead the Buckeyes to a Big Ten Championship with a 34–21 victory over Wisconsin and a spot in the College Football Playoff. In the 2019 Fiesta Bowl against Clemson, he had 320 passing yards, one touchdown in the College Football Playoff semifinal.
