Depending on what happens with the college football season this fall, there’s a chance we’ve seen the last of Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields at Clemson and Ohio State.
I’m trying to remain optimistic but I can’t help but think we may never see Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields play another college football game.
The two favorites to win the Heisman Trophy and arguably the two best players on the two best teams in the nation, and potentially the top two picks in the 2021 NFL Draft, Lawrence and Fields have been tied together since they were the top two recruits in the same high school class.
I’m hoping against all hope fans at Clemson and Ohio State will get one more season to watch them and for college football fans across the world to get one more season out of these talented signal-callers.
But I can’t help but think if we’ve already seen the last of them in a Clemson and Ohio State uniform.
Is it possible the last game for Lawrence is a loss to LSU in the National Championship Game?
Is it possible the last game for Fields was a loss to Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl?
Fields can’t go out that way. Not with an interception being his final throw in Scarlet and Gray.
Lawrence can’t go out losing the first game of his college career.
It’s no secret that sports are in a holding pattern right now as the COVID-19 pandemic has shutdown the economy around the world, for the most part. Sports took a back seat to make sure the spread of this deadly virus can be controlled and hospitals aren’t operating at maximum capacity.
When sports do resume is unknown.
Professional sports leagues have not moved forward with resuming the NBA or NHL or moving forward with the start of the baseball season. The NCAA has outlined a series of core principles to return to rescocializing, but it’s still contingent on 14 days of diminishing COVID-19 infection rates.
Discussions on what to do with the college football season are ongoing and nothing concrete has been established or discusses. Basically, all options are on the table.
The season could start on time with fans in the stands, the season could begin on time without fans, the season could be pushed back later into the fall and there’s even an option of pushing the season into the spring.
It’s that last option that is definitely the least attractive option of all the options on the table but if this becomes a reality, it brings into question whether Lawrence and Fields would run the risk of playing that close to the 2021 NFL Draft.
If the season begins in March and they get injured in April and the draft is on the first weekend of May, it changes everything we’ve known about the pre-draft process.
Would Lawrence and Fields (and any other projected first or second-round picks) choose to sit out and just prepare for the draft? Would the NFL Scouting Combine be pushed back to allow for college athletes to finish their spring season? Would the draft need to be pushed back to June or July?
Everything is on the table for playing the season and everything is on the table when it comes to draft prospects like Lawrence and Fields who may have to put their best interests ahead of the team goals. Don’t blame them for this. Blame the circumstances by which they are now trying to navigate just like the rest of the world.
Naturally, there will be people upset if Lawrence and/or Fields don’t suit up if a spring season is the only way to play a season. I would put the chances of either of them playing in that spring scenario at zero percent.
Ohio State and Clemson fans can be disappointed they don’t have their star quarterbacks and college football fans will be deprived of seeing two all-time talents. But if the roles were reversed and we got to stand in their shoes, the anger or disappointment would be gone.
Everyone wants a normal college football season in the fall. That would see sports return to our TV and our daily lives while also seeing the players we love on the gridiron. That would see these hypothetical questions die and we can enjoy the games.
But as we live in a time of great uncertainty, I can’t help but think the college careers for Lawrence and Fields may be over. I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t help it. I hope it doesn’t happen, of course, and we’ll get a Clemson-Ohio State rematch in the College Football Playoff. That’s the send-off these two talents deserve.
Fingers crossed this will be the outcome.
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