Seth Emerson ($$) talks to Aaron Murray about a tie that binds:
But, really, everyone knows what is left for Fromm to do: win it all.
Murray, who came so painfully close in that 2012 SEC championship against Alabama in his junior year, knows what Fromm felt after that national championship as a freshman and that SEC championship as a sophomore. Finishing the deal, Murray opined, is Fromm’s driving force this year.
“When you have that in your grasp, finding a way to get that dagger in and just beat Alabama, once and for all, get that monkey off your back. I think that’s all he’s focused on. He’s a winner, he’s always been a winner, and he just wants to prove that this team is capable of winning the national championship,” Murray said. “If he can carry all that swagger, whatever you want to call it, that juice, into this season, I think he’s going to have an incredible season.”
That sounds like a better motivator than shaking off Justin Fields, if you ask me.
Get The Picture 
From all accounts Fromm treated Fields like a brother and showed him everything, always trying to help Fields improve. Not exactly the actions of a player worried about losing his job.
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I honestly believe he can do it, but only if the coaches have the confidence in him to take the leash off. That young man IS a champion! Let him go so he can take us to the promised land.
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I concur! Just let Fromm be great!
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I believe the coddling of Fields cost us big time last year. Hopefully they learned.
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Absolutely…
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Yep, Fields is the reason for all of the world’s ills. SMH
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Don’t be ridiculous, it is the way the staff handled the entire situation. Hence, “coddling”.
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Well, they shouldn’t have recruited him and they wouldn’t have had to “coddle” him as you all claim. That kid knew what the deal was at UGA with qb situation which was why he was committed to PSU initially. I love what Kirby is doing for this team, but he dropped the ball when it came to recruiting Fields. He simply was not going to sit behind Fromm for 3 years and Kirby should have known that.
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Two way street, choices weee made. I would think most every coach in America would have wanted Fields coming out of HS.
Wish the kid luck, he just was not ready to beat out Fromm. He would have benefited sitting another year behind Fromm imo….life goes on. I hope all parties have learned from this.
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Oh, no doubt that Fields should have thought a little harder about the reality of not beating out Fromm. He should have been willing to wait or stuck with his commitment to PSU.
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How did we coddle Fields in Baton Rouge and how did it cause us to lose to LSU?
How did we coddle Fields against Alabama?
We did not even play Fields against Texas. We took him to NO as insurance in case Fromm got hurt. How does a guy who never even put his helmet on is more to blame for the loss than the guys who did play?
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Whether you agree with the use of the word coddling or not, and it’s certainly debatable, pretty clear that it was mishandled. The desire to “keep him happy” and the effort to avoid a controversy with the media fanning the flames and trying to create a story hung over the program like a cloud last season. I mean I can’t see how anybody would argue otherwise. Add to that the fact that Fields was apparently not exactly easy to deal with and it was a mess. When I say it was mishandled that doesn’t mean I think Kirby had an easy situation on his hands. To me Fields should have been told that when he could beat from out in practice he would play. Otherwise Fromm was going to play and he could get some reps in the event of a blowout. The coming in for a play here and a play there during a drive didnt help anybody. And Kirby telling reporters “the plan is, there is no plan” just made things worse and made the media even more obsessed with it.
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I never noticed a cloud over our SEC East championship team. We did try to use Fields’s skills in situations where his skills could be valuable. That is what coaches should do.
Fromm beat Fields out. Fromm was a better QB and therefore was first team and Fields was a situational player. How is that “mishandling?”
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So you think running in Fields for a play or two here and there vs Bama when the mood struck was a good idea? D, JD.
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Let me add, reading ain’t hard, I blamed Kirby, not Fields…
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Or just, how about running him out (and Fields looking absolutely clueless) on the ill-fated Punt to decide the SECC?
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You are confusing the argument over “whether it was a good call ” with “what was the motivation for the call.” Do you really think that Smart said, “I don’t think we will get a first down but I will put a second stringer in to give Alabama a first down in our territory to make the second stringer feel better?”
Bad call, yes. Call made to coddle a second stringer? That is a nutty argument.
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I did not s as yuh it was a good idea or ax bad idea. What I did say was the coaches used him the way they did was because they thought he would succeed in those situations, not to “coddle ” him.
If you think uber competitive coaches make play calls based on any motivation other than they think the play will succeed, the damn, just damn.
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I am so tired of the 1980 internet memes. Jake take us to the promised land. There will be much rejoicing when Saban says Et tu, Brute?
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Kirby shouldn’t have recruited a QB rated 1 or 2? And the problem was HIS mishandling of Fields? What a crock those two statements are. I don’t think anyone particularly liked the running him on for a play or two, but that didn’t lead to his running away. That was the best chance he had to get on the field given his shortcomings at hat point, he left because he couldn’t play in the big spots, and probably wasn’t going to advance that far in another year or two. I wish we hadn’t used him that way either, it seemed distracting, but I believe Kirby was trying to get him the most playing time he could risk to keep him trying to continue his development. Just throwing him a bone. Also, it wouldn’t have been good for him to have been thrown into situations where he would fail in bigger moments in actual games. I think KS gave him all he could on Saturdays based on what he saw during the week. Everyone knew he was very talented in a 7 on 7 environment but reading defenses and making quick decisions at game speed wasn’t a strength that first year, certainly not the only freshman QB to be in that position.
The problem was that Fields seriously misjudged his readiness to compete at UGA against the talent we had on hand, and do so in the system we had, and against the level of competition he would face. He was either very naive, or got some terrible advice. Whichever it was, the error was on him. He handled it poorly, that wasn’t on Kirby. I have to admit it didn’t occur to me that he fully expected to win the starting job in 2018, I thought he came to learn what he needed to run a pro style offense and develop what he was lacking. Fields has the physical tools, that was why the UGA staff recruited him, but those skills weren’t fully honed. He should have a better chance in the ohio offense and against Big 14 defenses after a year of practice. We will all know this fall, could go either way. Might work out better for all this way. I know I would have been unhappy if we didn’t go after the talent needed to help our team, Smart did the best thing, imo.
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I agree with part of what you wrote, but I think the story is more simple. Fromm beat him out and Fields did not think he would be a starter until his senior season.
No one bitches about Stetson Bennett concluding in January 2018 that he wouldn’t get to play at UGA and he needed to transfer to get on the field. I do not see where Fields’s conclusion that he will not be first team is any less controversial.
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Kirby shouldn’t have worried about trying to please him. You can call that whatever you want but it turned out to be a bad idea.
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What did Kirby do “to try to please him” other than try to use his running ability in limited situations and play him with the second team when we had a lead?
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THE DECISIVE PUNT at the most crucial moment of the season?
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I don’t think Kirby ran that play to coddle Fields. He ran that fake punt because he thought Fields could complete the pass.
If you think Smart made that call to coddle Fields you sr er nuts.
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A load of crock would be anyone believing that Kirby didn’t over sell to Fields a chance at winning the starting job and guaranteeing him playing time even if he lost the competition. Once again, he was committed to PSU, so what did Kirby sell him to get him to come to Athens? I can almost guarantee that it wasn’t some 3 year development plan or else he would be getting ready to take reigns in Happy Valley and not in Columbus. Justin Fields is a starter at over 90% of the schools in this country. It’s naive for anyone to believe that Fields was going to sit back and be “developed ” for 3 seasons. It would have been nice to see him learn to not rely on his mobility in Athens, but I don’t blame him for not wanting to wait that long to play either. We live in different times now where these guys, (particularly qb’s) want to play ASAP.
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Fields couldn’t beat out Fromm. Period. From what I saw, Fields didn’t look confident more times than not. It was up to him to get where he needed to be to beat Jake. He didn’t do it, even with Jake’s help. I noticed Kirby would always mention him in after game press, “Justin continues to get better/improve.” Always. I thought it was kinda of bazaar, quite frankly, and thought, “Why is he always talking about Justin when he didn’t even play?” I figured he was trying to keep Justin happy by always mentioning him. All the best, Justin. GO DAWGS!
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Fromm went from completing 62% with 26 TDs and 7 INTs, to 67%, 30 TDs and 6 INTs. I don’t know how much he can keep improving, but with a continually improving OL the sky is the limit.
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