College Football: Top 5 transfer QBs who’ll make biggest impacts in 2019

2. Justin Fields, Sophomore

Old Team: Georgia
New Team: Ohio State

Ryan Day appearing to be in a very similar situation than Lincoln Riley found himself after Bob Stoops retired. Both Stoops and Urban Meyer were considered to be one of the best coaches in the country at the time of their resignations and had their jobs filled by young, unproven coaches that appear to possibly be in over their head.

That said, over the course of these last two years, Riley essentially wrote the book for how to succeed in precisely this type of situation. With this in mind, just as Riley went out and found a top-tier transfer quarterback to lead his offense, Day has done the exact same thing with the signing of Justin Fields — a prospect that was so highly-rated that the only quarterback ranked higher than him was Clemson phenom, Trevor Lawrence.

Fields is coming to Columbus having played in 12 games but has yet to get his first college start. Despite this lack of experience, Fields seems to have made the most out of the playing time he did get by finding the end zone eight times through the air without throwing any interceptions. He even managed to earn a 173 QBR, which happens to be slightly higher than Jake Fromm.

Putting up these types of numbers as a freshman in the SEC suggests he knows how to rise to the occasion and to Buckeye fans, there’s no bigger occasion than taking on the responsibility of becoming Ohio State’s starting quarterback.

Just like Jacob Eason, Fields’ experience playing against SEC defenses will likely prove to be as good a preparation as anything to get him ready to play a challenging Big Ten schedule. He averaged over 6.0 yards per carry last year and over 10 yards per pass and the more he plays the more he’s likely to continue to get better.

Although there’s no shortage of pressure on Fields to succeed, it’s worth pointing out that they have an incredible amount of depth on their roster and playmakers like Master Teague and their top-shelf wide receiving corps will do their part to lessen the burden he feels to make big plays.

As with most seasons, the Buckeyes save the biggest game for last against arch-rival Michigan who, after losing the last four showdowns against Ohio State under Jim Harbaugh, will be looking to capitalize on a team that has both a first-year head coach as well as a first-year quarterback.

Ohio State will most likely lose a couple of games this year as Day and Fields try to get into a rhythm, but those two losses will quickly be forgiven if they can beat Michigan in the last week of the year.