60
close to Fromm. “Jake started yelling and hollering at me,”
Cleveland recalls. “He was so mad, because he swore he
was about to shoot both them birds. That’s just kind of
how he is, you know? He wants it all.”
With Fields pushing him, Fromm improved across the
board as a sophomore, throwing for 2,761 yards, 30 touch-
downs and a 67.3% completion rate. But Smart continued
rotating in Fields all the
way up to the SEC cham-
pionship game, a rematch
against Alabama. The
stakes were high—win,
and Georgia would make
the College Football Play-
off for a second consecu-
tive season—and Fromm
played a great game,
throwing for 301 yards, three touchdowns and no inter-
ceptions. But on fourth-and-11 from midfield with 3:04 to
go in a 28–28 game, Smart subbed in Fields, who had taken
three snaps all day. “Would you pull Steph Curry out?”
Emerson asks. “He’s just hit four threes in a row, and you
pull him out with three minutes left to go? I just think....
Hey, coaches get paid big bucks to figure that stuff out.
It’s just, I’ve never seen a two-quarterback system work.”
Lined up in punt formation, Georgia snapped to Fields
on what appeared to be a designed run, and Alabama
swallowed it up immediately. On the next possession the
Tide scored the winning touchdown.
In the aftermath, Fields and his father reportedly had
multiple meetings with Smart. “Justin was definitely frus-
trated,” the coach says. “He wanted to play. He was the
eager freshman, which is probably the same way Jake
would’ve been with [Eason], if he hadn’t been playing.”
About a month after the Bama loss, Fields announced
he would transfer to Ohio State.B
ACK ON the pond, Fromm is singing to himself
again. He catches another bass, then another.
Each time, he unhooks the fish and tosses it
back into the water. He and Woerner made
no plans to clean or cook any fish on this particular day,
and Fromm’s not counting his catches, either. He’s at least
trying to relax.
This season will surely feel a little different for Fromm.
For the first time since arriving in Athens, he doesn’t have
to fight for his spot. In his third year starting, he’s poised
to finally topple Alabama, win a national title and make
a run at the Heisman Trophy. “I’m competing with myself
now,” he says.
Finally, Smart seems to be throwing his support behind
Fromm, too. When Smart sits for an interview for this story,
he tries pumping up his quarterback, and inevitably theconversation keeps winding back to Eason and Fields and
to the two quarterback competitions that Smart orches-
trated, which have defined Fromm’s career thus far.
For a while, Smart gamely answers the questions. It’s a
testament to Fromm that he ran the other two out. Eason
and Fields will now start for contenders elsewhere. If
Fromm makes it back to the Playoff it’s possible he could
meet a former teammate.
But when Smart is posed a hypothetical—What would
have happened if Fields had stayed? How would he have
handled Fromm versus Fields: Round 2?—t he coach
interjects: “Let me ask you something, is this interview
about Jake? Or is this about Jacob and Justin? I really... like, every time I talk to the media and they bring
up Justin and Jacob, they want to write about that, and
I really thought this interview was going to be about
Jake. I want to give Jake the publicity that Jake deserves,
because Jake’s awesome, you know what I mean? And
everything so far has been Jacob and Justin, Jacob and
Justin. That doesn’t make Jake who he is. Let’s talk about
who Jake is. Because Jake is a special person, a special
talent. I mean, the kid is resilient in every way. He’s been
a winner his whole life.”
Smart ticks off a few of Fromm’s accomplishments.
His voice is rising, his face getting red. He’d prefer not to
draw too much attention to the competitions, to the fact
that Georgia ever doubted Fromm. Smart would rather
exclude all that. He sighs. “I don’t want this to come
off like this is the Jacob and Justin and Jake [story],” he
says. “It shouldn’t be about those kids. Those kids did
everything right for Georgia while they were here. But
they have nothing to do with Jake Fromm.”
For the first time in three years, that statement is true.
There are no more battles, no more controversies to manage.
Fromm enters this season with a new kind of pressure—the
pressure to deliver as The Guy. The Only Guy. ±
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PREVIEW
JAKE FROMM
JAM
IE SQ
UIRE/GETTY IM
AGES
SECOND COMING
Smart first recruited
Fromm at Alabama, the
SEC foe they’re now
trying to topple.