Kirby Smart: Justin Fields will play in Sugar Bowl for Georgia
The Justin Fields era at Georgia apparently has one more game to go.
Georgia coach Kirby Smart told reporters Wednesday that Fields wants to play in the Sugar Bowl against Texas on Jan. 1. Fields is likely transferring from Georgia as the school has listed him as a player seeking a transfer in the NCAA’s player database.
“He decided he wanted to play in the Sugar Bowl, and I told him, ‘Absolutely, we’d love you to play in the Sugar Bowl,'” Smart said via UGASports.com. “We want you there. He’s come out to work, do that, and support his teammates.”
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Fields is allowed under the new NCAA transfer rules to practice with the team while exploring a transfer. It may sound odd for Fields to be wanting out of Athens while also wanting to play in the team’s bowl game, but the situation does make some sense. Fields, a freshman, is getting valuable practice time by staying and practicing. And by not prohibiting Fields from practicing if he wants to pursue a transfer, Smart looks like a coach who isn’t vindictive when a player decides he may be better off somewhere else.
Fields was the No. 2 quarterback recruit in the class of 2018 behind Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence. He’s taken situational snaps as Georgia’s No. 2 QB behind Jake Fromm in 2018 and will be in high demand as a transfer.
Georgia signed four-star QB Dwan Mathis on Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period. Mathis had been verbally committed to Ohio State but Georgia made a late push. Smart told reporters that Fields’ request to be put in the transfer database played a part in that recruitment of Mathis.
“That had an impact. Obviously, we have to recruit quarterbacks every year. You’ve got to keep quarterbacks in your program, and as you know, we were deficient at quarterback the last couple of years. We had only two on scholarship last year,” Smart said. “Ultimately, we’d like to have four scholarship quarterbacks in our program. That’s really hard to do nowadays, because it’s so volatile and they leave so often. We’re always working from the hope of being at four, but we were very fortunate to have that young man in camp. We communicated with him and he expressed interest, and the interest was mutual. We think he’s a really good player, very talented.”
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
Follow @NickBromberg on Twitter
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