Justin Fields Delivered an All-Time Performance vs Clemson
The score hung up in the Buckeyes weight room all offseason. “Clemson 29 Ohio State 23.”
A sour taste for all the returners, but none could match how junior QB felt has he watched Chris Olave break the other direction in the end zone and watch his pass sail into the arms of Clemson DB Nolan Turner, booking a ticket to the national championship for the Tigers and a ticket home for the Buckeyes.
Painful.
This Buckeyes team was never sure if they would get another crack at Clemson. However, in this crazy year, the cards fell in line for another classic showdown in New Orleans. No. 2 Clemson and No. 3 Ohio State. Another trip to the national championship on the line. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney doubled down that the Buckeyes don’t ‘deserve’ to play for a national championship with only six games played. Would he be right? Justin Fields silenced all that doubt.
The junior QB delivered one of the best CFP performances we’ve seen in the seven years of the playoff. 22/28 385 yards and six touchdowns. He had as many incompletions as touchdowns. It rivaled the performance of Joe Burrow vs Oklahoma in the semifinals last year, when the current Bengal delivered seven touchdown passes in the first half, right before Burrow threw another five in the championship game vs these same Tigers.
I would have to put this Fields’ performance up there with the former Heisman winner.
As shocking as this was to type…. the stock on Fields couldn't have been lower entering this game. Over his last three starts, Fields compiled just four touchdowns to five interceptions. He struggled with a thumb injury in the Big Ten title game and subsequently played the worst game of his career. He wasn’t mentioned as a Heisman finalist after being one of the preseason favorites to win the award. By a lot of major media outlets, Fields had dropped on draft boards behind BYU QB Zach Wilson.
Don’t you think that would have a dragging performance on a quarterback? Perhaps, but Fields didn’t agree with that. He reminded us of the QB he was at the beginning of the season where we were shocked every time he threw an incompletion.
The most impressive thing? Fields saved his best throws for after he got cracked in the back by Clemson LB James Skalski midway through the second quarter. Skalski was ejected for targeting, and Fields looked like he was done, laying on the Superdome turf in pain. I thought his ribs were surely broken. Every movement that Fields made on his way to the sideline looked like it caused total agony.
Pain or not, he jumped back into the game and unleashed a wave of fury on the Tigers defense.
Fields tossed two more touchdowns before halftime, giving the Buckeyes a 21-point halftime lead against the stunned Clemson defense. Then in the second half, Fields managed to unleash his two best throws of the night, two touchdowns that traveled over 50 yards in the air to put the dagger into the ACC champs(you can see those touchdowns here and here).
His coach Ryan Day called it, “one of the gutsiest performances I’ve ever seen.”
If you want to see just how good Fields was, look at this blurb from PFF’s Seth Galina (EPA is Expected Points Added):
The Bucks' EPA per play on passes was .93 — almost one unexpected point added per pass. It is by far their highest mark in the last six seasons, with a 2017 game at Nebraska coming in second at .89. That .93 was the 10th-highest in a single game this season. As for Clemson’s defense, it was their worst day in a very long time. Over the last six seasons, nothing even remotely comes close to them allowing .93 EPA per play. The second highest is Alabama in 2015 with only .43. In fact, in these six years, Clemson has only given up positive EPA per play via the pass 17 total times in 82 games. It’s almost like Clemson forgot to actually watch Ohio State’s film, regardless of how many games the Buckeyes played.
It’s not out of the question to say that Fields delivered one of the best performances of the last decade, but maybe the greatest performance in Buckeye history.
A win on Monday in Miami could seal that and Fields legacy as a Buckeye.
Writer
-By: TJ Mathewson