Ohio State football: Is Justin Fields the third-best quarterback?

Former Ohio State football quarterback Justin Fields entered the 2020 season trying to make his case for becoming the number one overall pick. While Trevor Lawrence has held onto that spot, it seems that the former Buckeye might be slipping even further on draft boards.

Recently, Todd McShay came out and said that Zach Wilson (quarterback for BYU) was “significantly better” than Justin Fields. This may come as a huge shock to people who have watched Fields over the last two years at Ohio State.

Wilson stormed onto the scene in 2020, while leading BYU to a one-loss season. He had career highs in passing yards (3,692), touchdowns (33 passing and 10 rushing), and completion percentage (73.5). These numbers are really impressive and would typically be evident of top talent. While I am not arguing that Wilson is not a great quarterback, he has not played anywhere near the level of competition that Fields has faced.

BYU did an amazing job at even getting a schedule together during the unprecedented 2020 season, but they were not able to land any big-name teams. Coastal Carolina was the cream of the crop for the Cougars’ schedule while they played zero power five teams the whole season.

It is still a big feat for Wilson to put up the numbers that he did, but when looking ahead to how he will perform at the next level, there has to be some concern about his ability to play good teams. While Wilson was putting up numbers against low-level competition, Justin Fields was leading the Ohio State football team to play in the National Championship game, dominating Clemson along the way.

Fields has shown that he can play the best teams in the country and be competitive. Now, are there areas that he needs to work on? Absolutely. His ability to progress through his reads, better pocket presence, and making anticipatory throws are all things he needs to be a star at the next level.

However, he has shown that he can put up great numbers against top teams. Wilson has only shown he can beat cupcakes. Fields should be taken with the second overall pick, while Wilson should be the third quarterback taken.