re: Did Trevor Lawrence progress faster than Justin Fields?

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He didn't have much in the way of opportunity.

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He sure did. He got more opportunity on the field as the backup than just about any other backup QB in recent history (at least at UGA).

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His only legitimate opportunities were in a couple of cupcake games, and he performed incredibly well in those games.

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He did play well overall against the cupcakes.

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Fromm had far more opportunities than Fields ever did.

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Yeah, being the backup when your starting QB is injured for a month will allow for that.

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It's hardly a fair comparison.

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It's not meant to be a one-to-one comparison as the situations were very different. The point was that each kid got a chance to show what they could do with the opportunities that they were given and Fromm showed continuous improvement week to week and leadership beyond his years while Fields looked like a true freshman. He lacked the presence of a field general and didn't seem to get better as the season went on. He played like I would expect a true freshman to play. It wasn't bad but he didn't impress save for a few plays.

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One guy got all the snaps and was handed a starting job because of an injury, the other one barely got any at all, except for the cupcake games and blowouts, which he basically did nothing but hand off.

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The way you described Fields' action makes it sound like he was a typical backup QB who only got to play when the games were out of hand. That's not true at all. He got to play all season with the game still in question. He got real snaps against real opponents. For comparison, Fields got as many passing attempts as Brice Ramsey in 2014 (39) but got 42 more rushing attempts compared to 0 for Brice. Several of those rushing attempts were actually passing plays where he took off and ran.

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The straw that probably broke the camel's back was not giving him any chance in the LSU game when Fromm was lost. That was enough for him to know he was probably wasting his time here. He wasn't going to sit for three years behind Fromm, and he had no guarantee that Fromm was going pro after his junior year. So I doubt he wanted to take that risk.

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That's possible, but even with him not getting but one offense play against LSU, he still got more reps than a true freshman QB should get with the starter playing well throughout the season. Fields could have changed a lot of minds if he played lights out with his opportunities.

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All of this guessing about Fields as a QB will be answered a year from now. If he balls out at OSU and looks great, we'll look a bit silly. If he doesn't then it's a moot point.

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Not really. If he balls out, it could be because the valuable experience he gained with us. He has a lot of potential but he didn't want to sit back and learn from Fromm and the coaches and try to win the starting spot after a season. He took snaps away from our starter and then bolted. Good riddance.