EVANSTON-It may not seem like it judging by their team’s records and their own statistics, but Ohio State’s Justin Fields and Northwestern’s Hunter Johnson have quite a bit in common.
The two quarterbacks, who will meet on Friday night when Northwestern hosts the No. 3 Buckeyes, were both five-star prospects coming out of high school: Johnson was the Rivals No. 2 pro-style quarterback in the 2017 class, Fields the No. 1 dual-threat in 2018. They are both transfers playing at their second schools: Fields made the move from Georgia to Ohio State last January, Johnson from Clemson to Northwestern in June of 2018. They both are learning a second college offense and got the first starts of their careers in their respective season openers this season.
And that’s where the similarities end. Because once play began on that last weekend of August, Fields hit the ground running while Johnson has been moving at more of a crawl.
The numbers aren’t even close. Fields has completed 70% of his throws in five games for 1,298 yards, with a sparkling 18-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Johnson, meanwhile, has completed just 48% of his passes in four games, for just 367 yards, with an upside down one touchdown and four interceptions. Add rushing to the mix and it gets even worse. Fields has 283 yards and eight TDs, while Johnson has 88 and one.
Put it this way: Fields is on the short list for the Heisman Trophy; Johnson isn’t even listed as the starting quarterback on Northwestern’s two-deep this week (it’s Johnson OR Aidan Smith).
When Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald was asked questions about Johnson during his press conference on Monday, he explained why the redshirt sophomore doesn’t yet know the offense as well as Smith (he’s had one less year in the system), and the need for Johnson to be more consistent in order to win the starting job outright.
“You’ve got to go out and produce it on game day and when you’re not, sometimes taking a step out is what you need to do,” he said.
Yet when Fitzgerald talked about Fields, he positively gushed.
“He’s playing outstanding football,” said Fitzgerald, who recruited Fields out of Kennesaw (Ga.) Harrison and got him to visit Evanston once. “He’s doing a great job playing within the framework of what Coach (Ryan) Day wants him to do, and then he’s taken it to the next level, being able to be really explosive with his feet and being really smart when he’s doing that.”
So, the question I posed to Fitzgerald is, why? Why does Fields look so confident directing an offense he hasn’t yet been running for a year, while Johnson still looks so hesitant and uncomfortable in his second year in Northwestern’s system?
After all, these are guys that started with a similar skill set. They collected more than 60 combined offers in high school. They both got one from Alabama, as sure a sign as any of a major national prospect.
There’s no way that Fields could have gotten more reps in his new offense than Johnson has in six fewer months, even if Johnson spent last season running the scout team each week. So why is Fields so far ahead?
Fitzgerald, not surprisingly, wouldn’t bite initially.
“I think that would be unfair to Justin, unfair to Hunter,” said Fitzgerald. “I think it’s one of those situations where every player has a different maturation throughout their career. There’s, in my opinion, no similarities because everybody’s experiences are totally different.”
But as he continued to talk, he shed some light on some possible reasons why.
There are certainly some “external factors,” as Fitzgerald called them, that make Fields’ and Johnson’s situations markedly different – as different as the Ohio State and Northwestern programs.
First of all, Fields is surrounded by a much better supporting cast than Johnson. He has the No. 1 rusher in the Big Ten in J.K. Dobbins (826 yards, 6 TDs) lined up behind him, and targets like Binjimen Victor (348, 3), K.J. Hill (275, 4) and Chris Olave (258, 4) to throw to. Ohio State ranks first in the Big Ten and in the Top 10 nationally in both total and scoring offense.
“They’ve got weapons everywhere,” said Fitzgerald. “It starts and ends with the quarterback. Everybody else is first team All-Big Ten in my book. They’re phenomenal.”
Johnson’s primary weapons, on the other hand, have spent as much time on the training table as they have on the field. Isaiah Bowser, last season’s leading rusher, has been limited to three games due to injury, as has No. 1 wide receiver Bennett Skowronek, who is expected to miss at least a couple more weeks. The Wildcats rank in the 120s nationally in total, passing and scoring offense.
Fields also hasn’t been in any high-pressure situations yet as Ohio State has plowed through its schedule like a combine. The Buckeyes are winning by an average score of 32.4 points per game and their closest margin of victory has been 24 points (twice). That has enabled Fields to gain confidence while his team rolls over opponents, so that, if and when the Buckeyes ever do get into a nail-biter, their quarterback will theoretically be ready for it.
Johnson was thrown into the fire in Week 1, locked in what was a three-point game in the fourth quarter.
But more than all those numbers, Fitzgerald thinks that quarterbacks just learn at different speeds. Some pick up an offense faster than others, and for no particular reason that he can see.
“For some players, it just clicks,” he said. “It just clicks right away because…I don’t know why. I couldn’t tell you why.”
There are also several variables that we don’t know. We don’t know is if Ohio State’s offense is easier to grasp for a new quarterback. Sources have told WildcatReport over the years that Northwestern’s offense forces the quarterback to make a lot of reads.
Even Clayton Thorson, NU’s all-time passing leader, didn’t fare very well in his first year running the offense as a redshirt freshman in 2015, completing 50.8% of his throws, for 1,522 yards, with 7 TDs and 9 INTs. And he was leading a 10-win team that year that featured running back Justin Jackson, who ran for 1,418 yards. Johnson doesn’t have anything like that to rely on this season.
Maybe the most revealing thing that Fitzgerald said is that “everybody’s got things going on in their lives that are completely different and make their experiences different and unique.” We can't begin to speculate about that.
Fitzgerald has been frustrated as anyone by Johnson's erratic play this season, but he said that he has faith that Johnson can get to Fields’ level at some point. It will take time and hard work to get there.
“Do I expect Hunter will get his play up to where Justin’s is at right now? I believe so,” he said. “I believe that will happen.”
Friday night would be as good a time as any.
