No way on tonight's evidence you think that Sam Darnold is a better bet the Justin Fields. Having said that you can't just ignore Fields's performances in other games this year.
Well, you can a little bit. Or at least count them equally against ALL games he’s played. And consider context.
First, he threw 41 TD’s and only 3 INT’s last season. In a much larger sample size.
Secondly, he played well the first 3 games this season. Then due to a bunch of covid issues, only played 2 games in 6 weeks leading up to the Big10 title game. And was missing 22 players in total and several starters including Olave.
There’s your context.
Does the 3 poor performances during a disjointed covid affected season count more than his previous season in it’s entirety and this HUGE semi-final against a good team?
Don’t forget that he played well against Clemson last season too.
And one of the teams he struggled against after not playing much leading up to that point just laid a beat down on Auburn today. And Indiana has also proven to be pretty good.
Not saying Fields is all world, but he’s better than many are giving him credit for.
But the main point still being, if you are not going to forget about the 3 poor games he had this season then you also can’t dismiss the great season he had last season, the first three games this season and the epic performance he just had tonight.