Connor Riley wants to know what the fuck is wrong with you people.
Why is Fields seen as a villain to some, while many are outright rooting for Eason? Why can’t everyone wish the best for both Eason and Fields?
He left out the great middle, which belongs to those of us who don’t care one way or the other about either, since they’re no longer in Athens. The rest of you, though, evidently should be ashamed of yourselves.
Maybe part of it is because Fields committed to Georgia when it had already become clear that Jake Fromm had usurped the job from Eason, and Kirby Smart had no intentions of giving the job back to Eason. Maybe part of it is because Eason sat out a season, while Fields sought immediate playing time, like he did at Georgia. There’s probably even the fact that Fields went to play at Ohio State, a much more hated program than Washington.
Many will also likely point to the timing of Fields’ initial transfer announcement. News of Fields entering the transfer portal came out the Monday before the Early Signing Period. Georgia’s season hadn’t finished yet, as the Bulldogs still had to play in the Sugar Bowl.
Reports of Eason transferring to Washington came out the day after Georgia’s season ended last year. There wasn’t a transfer portal for him to put his name him into though. Had Georgia played in the College Football Playoff in 2018, Fields almost certainly follows a similar timeline. The same could be said for Eason had Georgia not made the College Football Playoff in the 2017 season.
Fields was certainly a more divisive player among the fan base while at Georgia. Eason and Fields were both better recruits than Fromm. But the calls to play Fields were louder than they ever were for Eason during the 2017 season. Fields was much more athletic and clearly had every bit of arm strength that Eason had. But with the exception of the LSU game, Fromm was an even better player in 2018 than he was in 2017.
Gosh, why can’t we all just get along and see everyone as winners in the game of life?
Hey, at least I’ll give him credit for not playing the racism card there. Maybe he’s saving that for another click-bait day.
Get The Picture 
That’s a terrible article. Fields was completely willing to drag the university through the mud to get his way. I don’t remember Eason hiring a lawyer.
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No, because Eason sat out a year after sitting out a year.
I don’t like the way Fields went about this either, but the system is set up so they have to get a lawyer to do what should have been their right in the first place.
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Frankly, it wasn’t in Eason’s best interest to be immediately eligible. He wasn’t going to take the job from Browning, so he was either going to redshirt or waste a year taking mop-up snaps. Redshirt and be ready to compete this spring. Apparently, Eason won UDub’s scout team award this fall, so I bet Peterson has a plan for him.
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Quite possibly dumbest arguments I’ve ever seen.
Is it possible, maybe, that Eason did everything right, even though losing your starting job by injury is brutal, while Fields seemingly, with all of the fans behind him, still managed to do it all wrong. It was Fields, and Fields alone, who alienated many, many good people.
I kind of dislike my school, that I have associated with for 40 years being likened to a Klan meeting. But that’s just me.
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If you didn’t want to be associated with the Klan, you should have gone to school in Ohio. Racist.
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Meant to say LIKE my school! Dang Spellcheck!!!
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Yep. Clickbait. And we will see the racism card played on another clickbait day.
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Oh, he was playing it. He just didn’t say it expressly. Like “The two situations are so similar to each other, what possibly could be different? Hmmm…”
I don’t think anyone cares that Fields wanted to go someplace else to get a chance to play. I think a lot of people resent what appears to be a BS excuse which paints UGA in a bad light by “his camp” in order to skirt the transfer rules. I never pull for Ohio State, I never have, and I see no reason to start now. If Connor Riley wants to pull for Ohio State, good for him, but I don’t need any lectures from a virtue signaling, click bait little know it all about who I should be pulling for or why.
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Exactly.
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concur
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That is a weird article. IMO he wants to play the racism card but doesn’t have anything to back up the accusation with. So instead he throws out theories that make no sense at all. “Maybe part of it is because Fields committed to Georgia when it had already become clear that Jake Fromm had usurped the job from Eason, and Kirby Smart had no intentions of giving the job back to Eason.” What the hell does that even mean? Yeah, he is trolling alright, but either doesn’t have any balls or doesn’t have permission. Also, he could just be a shitty journalist.
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You left out the word “yellow” between “shitty” and “journalist”.
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Eason lost his job due to an injury and couldn’t get get it back. He never seemed to complain about it or his role after it, and he decided to return home. The fact that he built up a lot of capital with the fan base for his effort in 2016 helped when he could have decided to go somewhere else after Richt’s firing. The picture of Eason walking off the MBS turf with Fromm in January showed how much he seemed to like his teammates. Fields never had the job and didn’t seem to understand why Fromm wouldn’t get out of his way or why the coaches didn’t see him as a better option. Probably watching Trevor Lawrence blossom as a starting QB didn’t help matters.
Fields could have waited until the season was over to put his name in the portal or to have his lawyer start the publicity effort for his eligibility. I’m convinced he had already been contacted through proxies (his QB coach) of the Suckeyes’ interest. The timing of his decision was another distraction to the team in its bowl preparations and during the ESD dead period. The fact he’s going to anOSU is just icing on the cake.
To each his own …
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If the news didn’t drop when it did on the Fields transfer do we get Dwan Mathis? We were able to talk to several QB’s about joining the 2019 class because the news on Justin’s transfer was public knowledge. I do agree it was a huge distraction leading up to the Sugar bowl, however I am not sure we are able to add a freshman QB to the 2019 class without it being out there.
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I can see that angle. I still don’t think it was great to have that news hanging over the program with Dan Wolken’s tweets and the speculation about the effect of the likely allegations on the class. It certainly stemmed the tide when Nolan Smith, Travon Walker and others reaffirmed their commitments soon after.
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That’s always what I thought, too. We managed to grab Mathis BECAUSE we knew Fields was leaving. If he waited until after the signing period to enter the portal, we would have been screwed.
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The Fields eligibility approval is nothing less than free agency. All you need is any bullshit excuse now and your transfer will be granted.
I trust all of cfb will be fine with it when Kirby plucks the best talent away from other teams, particularly tOSU. Turnabout is fair play.
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This is not free agency. It’s using, abusing if you prefer, the existing rules:
“in cases where the student-athlete was a victim of objective, documented egregious behavior by a staff member or student at the previous institution and the previous institution supports the waiver.”
Fields had two choices: Sit behind Jake and wait. Leave and sit somewhere else to please “you people.” I’d risk your ire too.
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What do you mean “you people”??????
Sorry, couldn’t resist 😉
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He means “you smart people.” I think it was a statement born of envy.
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WCD, Fields’ waiver isn’t free agency.
Martell’s waiver will be free agency.
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Fields is free agency. His sister is in the “hostile” environment that the lawyers created.
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Nope. Thanks to (1) Sasser and (2) UGA’s acquiescence, he fit squarely within the NCAA’s waiver rule. Mars just worked with the existing protocol.
If you’re upset with that, blame Sasser for being thoughtless. Mars couldn’t have done it without him.
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Very true about Sasser … the guy was a fool.
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And Fields claim wasn’t that Georgia is a hostile environment for black athletes – that’s way too broad for the NCAA’s review policy. It was that something specific happened to him and to him alone. And that something happened to be completely documented and a NCAA get-out-sitting-a-year-jail-free card. If another player at GA tried to use it in a similar way, the NCAA would say, “Nope.”
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“Mars couldn’t have done it without him”. We’ll never know, but if we could, I’d bet he could have. Sasser just made Mars’ job easier.
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Without Sasser, I doubt Georgia withdraws its objection. YMMV, of course.
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I doubt that because Mars would have done something else and attempted to drag UGA and/or Kirby through the mud.
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And you are “sure” of this how? Because Mars has attempted that strategy with exactly zero other clients. And he does have other clients.
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The statement does have the benefit of “truthiness” tho.
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I do not see a legitimate reason for either. Both are transferring for the exact same reason. They weren’t guaranteed the starting job next season.
Neither one would have transferred if they had been. The fact that UGA did not put up a real fight is just one more dumb thing they have or haven’t done.
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I’m not arguing with your points, but once UGA withdrew its objection, it was a textbook case for a waiver, based on the NCAA’s clear language.
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It was. It’s a shame because if this trend continues everyone involved in the sport will ultimately suffer from it in some way.
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What exactly constitutes “egregious”? That can never be absolutely clear.
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I could be wrong, but I would think doing something that gets you kicked off the baseball team by the school qualifies as egregious.
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It might apply in this case, but there’s lots of wiggle room in that word.
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I think that guy was the one who wrote the metaphorical thanksgiving food/uga player article in November.
It’s as if the AJC went out and hired the entire staff from the Athens Academy school paper to replace Seth Emerson.
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CPark, don’t insult Athens Academy like that.
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The AJC crew was all in on Fields taking Fromm’s job from the get-go. It was helped by Kirby saying there would be competition and not naming Fromm the clear cut guy. It all added up to what they wanted, a QB controversy, and many of us got tired of it and most of us are glad Fields is gone for that reason, not because we hate him.
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THIS. They wanted a QB controversy just like they did when Shockley wasn’t the starter. Thankfully no-one took that bait either.
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I personally don’t know one dog fan pulling for Eason or Fields. Both are number ones in their MINDS only, not in the mind of the person who had to choose not to play them, Kirby!!!!! I could care less about their new careers.
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You must not know many DAWG fans then. Most I know wish nothing but the best for Eason and hopes he has a fantastic career (unless it is to the detriment of UGA in the rankings or in a head to head). He was a DGD. Fields on the other hand. Good riddance and just another reason added to my already considerable dislike of the arrogant asses in Columbus.
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^^^This is how every Dawg fan I know feels. Such a troll article. Other than the player who kept them from the job, the situations couldn’t be more different. While he mentions it in passing, the article fails entirely by not emphasizing the fact that Jacob Eason was our starter for an entire season. The other kid waltzed in and cried like a little bitch after the first 2 games when he wasn’t allowed to play the role of hero.
Yep, I will be rooting against Ohio State and Justin Fields in every single game.
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Who? I’m cheering for Dwan Mathis.
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The kid doesn’t know football and even if he did he’s a mediocre writer.
Thank you for the disclaimer this time so I didn’t inadvertently give him any clicks.
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I don’t harbor any ill will towards Eason or Fields. Fromm was the better qb and they both quit and moved on.
The issue is the ncaa and the new model of free agency it has created by allowing Fields to break a commitment with no consequence. I will preface this by saying I have no problem if a coach leaves and players want to transfer, at that point the school has broken its commitment. The door is wide open now for any player to break their commitments without consequences and recruiting will become a non stop process to steal players from other teams. If I were a school I would add non compete clauses to every scholarship now.
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I thought they weren’t employees.
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To me, the difference between Fields and Eason was that Eason was usurped by a guy in a class under him. To have any shot at playing time, he needed to move on. Fields could have redshirted to put an extra year of separation between him and Fromm and would have had at least two years to play and possibly three if Fromm leaves early. I don’t harbor any ill will toward either player because they did what they thought was in their own best interest, but I’ll root against Ohio State just like I did this season and every season before that.
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Meh I think my distaste for Fields came after I saw that post South Carolina game video where he was seemingly complaining about his role as a backup quarterback.
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Fields leaving is not the problem. Fields’ camp willing to go scorched earth if they did not get what they want is the problem. His leaving was probably in the best interest of the team as he seem to have been a distraction. Eason never seemed to have that problem.
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Did I read recently where Fields was bitching during / after the Austin Peay game as well ? I swear I’m not making this up.
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Yes you did. Someone mentioned that it was on the SEC Network( I think), but was difficult to find the video. He may be a great talent, but sometimes great talent comes with a HUGE price. I don’t think many would argue that Terrell Owens was not a hugely talented receiver. He is currently #3 on the all times receiving yards list. Despite that talent, he bounced around because in short order, he could destroy a locker room like few in the history of the NFL could. Most teams found that the upside was not worth the massive downside. Fields and his father I suspect are headed down this very path.
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I just generally accept the position that I hate the tOSU QB. Don’t care who he is or where he came from.
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Isn’t it ironic that Sasser (no words can describe his stupidity/poor judgement/racism/drunkenness/whatever it was) was actually wanting Fields to be put into the game?
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I understand what you’re saying, but that’s kinda the second most relevant part of what happened.
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