B1G debate: Should Justin Fields have to play a certain number of games for Heisman Trophy consideration?

Editor’s note: Ryan O’Gara and Connor O’Gara grew up following sports in suburban Chicago. The brothers, separated by 20 months, debated about their favorite teams and players so often that their father would often have to remind them, “This isn’t PTI.” Each Friday, they’re bringing that debate to you, centered around the Big Ten and college football as a whole.

This week’s debate: Should Justin Fields have to play a certain number of games for Heisman Trophy consideration?

RYAN: For the third straight week, the Big Ten is canceling a game due to COVID-19. This week, it’s Ohio State and Maryland after the Terrapins reportedly had 8 players test positive. When the news broke Wednesday, I wrote that this doesn’t jeopardize Ohio State’s College Football Playoff hopes, especially considering this wasn’t even their team that had the outbreak. I am taking the same stance on the Heisman Trophy: A few canceled games does not diminish Justin Fields’ candidacy.

This is a weird season, so we have to throw our normal standards out the door. It used to be that if a player missed a few games due to injury, that player was penalized in the Heisman race, especially if the team won without him. Since teams across the country (heck, teams across each conference) are playing an uneven number of games, it should go to the most outstanding player regardless of whether their team had a few games canceled.

I certainly don’t think Fields could play only 4 games and win the Heisman, but if he plays 7 games (6 in the regular season, plus the Big Ten Championship), he should absolutely be a candidate, assuming he continues on this torrid pace.

Fields obviously is going to have to go nuts during those 7 games to make up for his own conference’s incompetence and ensure his numbers stack up to an SEC player, like Mac Jones, who could play 3 or 4 more games. But if he’s got the numbers and Ohio State wins the Big Ten, I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t strongly be considered.

CONNOR: This is a fascinating question because I’m sure it’s one that Heisman voters are debating right now. Like, can we really punish a kid for getting games canceled? Certainly it’s a different situation than an injury because an opposing team’s COVID results are as out of one’s control as it gets. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but this is unprecedented in every way.

And let me first say that I think there’s a strong case to be made that Fields is the best player in the sport right now. He’s doing things from an accuracy and awareness standpoint that are somehow even better than last year. He deserves a ton of credit for that. It’s undoubtedly going to make him a top-5 pick come draft time.

As for the Heisman, that’s a different discussion. I think if Fields is sitting there with 4 fewer games than his fellow candidates, he shouldn’t win the award. That essentially means if he only gets 6 regular season games and a conference title game, it’s not a big enough sample size to join the Heisman fraternity. I mean, even when Tom Harmon won the Heisman in 1940, he played in 8 games before he won the award.

This would be different if guys like Mac Jones and Kyle Trask went into the Heisman ceremony with only 1 or 2 more games played than Fields (. As of right now, those guys are scheduled to play 10 regular season games and 1 if they make it to the conference championship. Four games is a lot in this sport. Go ask Tennessee about that. In a conference-only schedule, I don’t think we should discount what that means.

Here’s the other thing. It’d be different if Fields had something like 4 or 5 games against ranked foes, and it looked like a gauntlet, this would be a different discussion. So far, the combined records of teams he faced is 1-7. One ranked team is left on the regular season schedule, and it’s a home game against an Indiana team who hasn’t beaten the Buckeyes in 32 years.

This is shaping up to be one of those years in which Fields might just have too many factors outside of his control working against him to win college football’s most coveted award.

RYAN: What if Fields’ numbers after 7 games are similar to those of Trask and Jones? For example, Fields is on a 7-game pace of about 2,220 passing yards, 26 TD passes (and 26 incompletions), 0 turnovers and 6 rushing TDs. That may not be enough to get it done if he has 3-4 fewer games, but what if he steps it up and finishes with 2,500 passing yards, 32 TD passes and 8 rushing TDs. And by step it up, I mean Ryan Day allowing Fields to attack defenses for an entire game. (To be fair, Jones hasn’t gotten to a ton of fourth-quarter passing either, though Trask has.)

Jones right now is on a 10-game pace of about 27 TD passes, so the same as what Fields could realistically hit in 7. Obviously, Jones is going to have more yards since he is playing more games, but since when does yardage determine a Heisman?

If Fields is the QB of the undefeated B1G champion averaging over 4 TD passes per game while completing 85 percent of his passes (the single-season record is 76 percent), I’m not sure how he’s not a finalist. Maybe Jones or Trask step it up on even more than Fields over the final month, but let’s allow that to play out.

Getting hung up on a few games doesn’t make a ton of sense to me, because it isn’t like Fields is going to hurt his case in those extra games. If Fields has more TD passes and fewer INTs than Jones or Trask, why does Fields need to play in more games just to qualify for the conversation? It’s highly probable that Fields wouldn’t throw an interception if he had another game or 2. This isn’t like the race for a batting title where it’s very possible for a hitter to go 0-for-4 a few games in a row and ruin his batting average.

Also, spare me the strength of schedule argument. The SEC doesn’t have a single defense ranked in the top 20 nationally in terms of yards per play or total defense. Feleipe Franks and Kellen Mond, 2 wildly inconsistent and frustrating QBs over the last few years, have combined for 30 TDs and 5 INTs this season. Jones and Trask aren’t doing this against SEC defenses of old. They are having great seasons, but let’s not pretend that because they are up against a ranked team that they are playing against a defense any better than Fields.

CONNOR: To be clear, I wasn’t arguing that SEC defenses were gauntlets. I was saying it’d be different for Fields if playing against superior defenses to his competition made up for that game differential. I think it’s pretty even in that department.

To me, though, this comes back to how critical we are of Heismans. One bad game can be all she wrote to win this award. How many times have we crowned a September or October Heisman only to watch reality set in and see that player get lapped by the field? If you simply don’t have those opportunities on the table, it doesn’t make the body of work as impressive. I fear that if Fields were to win the award, it would be too much about what we knew about him coming into 2020 and not letting the season-long résumé do the talking.

I’m not saying Trask is a better college football player than Fields. But if we’re gonna talk about pace, that dude is currently on a historically good one. He just became the first SEC quarterback to ever have 4 touchdown passes in 5 consecutive games. If we’re still talking about him in the same light with something like 40 touchdowns pre-Heisman — he’s on pace for 44 in a 10-game regular season — then no, I don’t think we can talk about Fields in the same light.

I’d still make Fields a finalist. He’d absolutely be worthy of getting the experience. But in terms of being eligible to win the award, a 4-game difference against Power 5 competition is too significant for the Heisman. He can still lead his team to the Playoff, become a national champion and possibly be a top-5 pick. Just let college football’s top individual honor go to the player who truly proved he had the best season.