Ohio State Football: Ryan Day makes right choice with Justin Fields

The Ohio State football team and head coach Ryan Day officially named Georgia transfer and five-star standout Justin Fields the Week 1 starter.

Justin Fields, who left the Bulldogs after losing out on the starting job to Jake Fromm, beat out Kentucky transfer Gunnar Hoak in a battle that pushed through much of fall camp.

Head coach Ryan Day made the announcement during his weekly press conference as the Buckeyes continue to prepare for Florida Atlantic in Week 1 at home. Ohio State and Fields will also have a non-conference foe in Week 2 when they welcome Cincinnati before opening Big Ten play on the road at Indiana.

The first major test for Fields and the offense — assuming he still has the job — will come in late September when the Buckeyes head to Lincoln to meet Scott Frost, Adrian Martinez and Nebraska. They follow that up with Michigan State back in Columbus.

Fields, who was featured on the Netflix series “QB1: Beyond the Lights” during his senior season, was graded as one of the top quarterbacks in the country coming out of high school.

The 6-foot-3, 223-pounder from Harrison in Georgia was named MVP of the 2017 Elite 11 Quarterback Competition and tallied 4,187 yards passing, 2,096 yards rushing and 69 touchdowns over his two seasons as a starter.

Despite being one of the top incoming freshman, Fields was not able to wrestle the Georgia starting job away from Fromm. Instead, he played in 12-of-14 games last year as a true freshman, completing 27-of-39 for 328 yards with four touchdowns in the air and four more on the ground. His biggest game came in a win over UMass when he threw for 121, rushed for 100 and had three scores to show off his abilities.

The NCAA granted Fields a waiver, making him eligible to play this year and replace top draft pick Dwayne Haskins under center. Most felt it was an easy choice to make Fields the starter, especially after he enrolled at the start of the new school semester and was with the team through spring drills.

Hoak, though, made the decision a tough one and is likely to continue pushing Fields each day in practice. For Day, the choice of Fields was the right one because the dual-threat quarterback offers such an explosive style of play that he will force opponents to focus so much on what he can do, allowing running backs like J.K Dobbins to exploit holes.