Urban Meyer explains picking Trevor Lawrence over Justin Fields as top college QB

Urban Meyer prefers Trevor Lawrence over Justin Fields.

The Trevor Lawrence vs. Justin Fields debate just got a lot more interesting.

During Big Noon Kickoff‘s Twitter broadcast on Wednesday night, Urban Meyer ranked his top five quarterbacks heading into the 2020 college football season. Despite coaching the Ohio State Buckeyes to a national championship back in 2014, he has Clemson Tigers quarterback Trevor Lawrence ranked at the top spot of his rankings ahead of Ohio State’s Justin Fields.

“I had [Justin] Fields and Trevor [Lawrence] right next to each other,” said Meyer. “I put Trevor Lawrence at No. 1 for one reason: he played one more year, that was it.”

Though both Georgia native quarterbacks began their college careers back in 2017, Lawrence was able to earn the starting job at Clemson as a true freshman, while Fields was not able to beat out Jake Fromm at Georgia, which led to his transfer to Ohio State ahead of the 2018 campaign.

Urban Meyer has Trevor Lawrence as a better quarterback over Justin Fields.

While Meyer quickly praised Fields and the great job he’s done thus far at Ohio State, the one year of extra playing time is the separating factor in Meyer’s eyes. Is he right in that assumption or should he have had the Heisman Trophy finalist from a season ago in the top spot over the 2018 National Championship quarterback?

Truthfully, it’s only nitpicking here. Lawrence and Fields are the unquestioned top-two returning quarterbacks in the country. They are light years ahead of the other guys making up the rest of Meyer’s top five in the Texas Longhorns’ Sam Ehlinger, USC Trojan’s Kedon Slovis and Florida Gators’ Kyle Trask. The separation between Lawrence and Fields is razor-thin.

For those who argue Lawrence for the top spot, he quarterbacked his team to a national championship in 2018 and played for another in 2019. Lawrence’s only college football loss came against arguably the best team we’ve seen in years in Joe Burrow’s 2019 LSU Tigers. Lawrence has the prototypical size, slightly better arm strength and more starting experience.

If you think Fields is the top guy, you would argue that in one year’s worth of starting experience he quarterbacked his team to a College Football Playoff berth in a harder conference, as well as earning an invitation to the Heisman Trophy ceremony while Lawrence did not. Fields is more mobile, a more accurate passer and played against the tougher competition last season.

Overcoming Ohio State bias, Meyer gives the slightest of edges to Lawrence over Fields for 2020.

For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.