Dwayne Haskins’ death was a sad one and everyone in the NFL fraternity is still in shock and in a state of mourning. Justin Fields is also remembering Dwayne’s death and his impact on Ohio State.
Justin has a lot to say about Dwayne Haskins via SI;
“I’m not gonna lie, he kind of did start something,” Fields said while driving home from the Bears’ offseason program on Tuesday. “You can say he did. We’ll never know if I’d have gone to Ohio State if he wasn’t there, but you can give him credit for starting something. I was thinking about that the other day, and I saw something online—before him, there really wasn’t an elite passer at Ohio State for years before.
“I think he started that elite passing group with, of course, him, me and now C.J. [Stroud].” Haskins tragically died Saturday, at 24. Rightfully, much of the focus since has been on the genuine, positive, always-smiling personality that Haskins had, and the way he connected with so many of those around him.
But even if he never got to turn the corner as a pro, he will leave a legacy as a player.
And Fields is a pretty good illustration of it, as is Stroud, and as will be, in all likelihood, whoever comes after Stroud. Because you can argue that Haskins didn’t just affect the direction of Ohio State football, which he undoubtedly did. He also affected the way the game was played in the Big Ten as a whole. The numbers make that clear.
• His 50 TD passes in 2018 broke a 20-year-old conference record, set by Drew Brees at Purdue. And it broke Brees’s record (38) by 11.
• Haskins’s 4,939 yards of total offense that fall broke Denard Robinson’s eight-year-old record (4,272) by nearly 700 yards.
• Haskins became the first first-round QB from Ohio State in 37 years.
It wasn’t just that it happened, either. It was the way it looked, too
“It was just how live his arm was,” Fields said. “He’s got a whip. The ball came off his hand like nobody else; it’s just how much of a natural thrower he was, and how live his arm was.”
And when Fields was considering transferring after spending his freshman year at Georgia, he got to see some tape of it. He’d also had met Haskins, if only in passing, working with their shared quarterback coach, Quincy Avery, in Atlanta. But truth be told, at that point—in part, because, as Fields says, “I’m kind of an introvert. … When I first meet a person, I’m not quick to ask them a lot of questions”—there really wasn’t a connection between the two.
Dwayne Haskins — May he rest in peace.
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