CHICAGO – When former Georgia quarterback Justin Fields announced in early January his intention to transfer to Ohio State, the assumption was that he would be the Buckeyes' next starting quarterback.

Dwayne Haskins, who accompanied Fields to his first Ohio State basketball game the next day, was leaving early for the NFL Draft. Fields was a five-star prospect a year prior, the No. 2 quarterback in the country per the 247Sports Composite and the highest-rated player ever to commit to Ohio State. He seemed like the obvious choice to step in for Haskins.

It seemed even more obvious that Fields would be the starter when Tate Martell elected to transfer to Miami, leaving only Matthew Baldwin and Chris Chugunov as scholarship quarterbacks on the roster. Following spring, Baldwin too announced he was leaving the program and it was hard to see how Fields would not be the starting quarterback, even after the Scarlet and Gray added Kentucky transfer Gunnar Hoak in late April.

Well, not so fast.

Following spring practice, head coach Ryan Day was not ready to name a starting quarterback. Three months later at Big Ten Media Days, Day made it clear that Fields is still not the starter.

"First off, Justin has to win the job. People just assume," Day said on Thursday.

"You don't just get given a starting position. You have to earn everything you get around here, and he hasn't done that."

This is the second year in a row the Buckeyes had a quarterback battle in the spring. Last year, Haskins battled with Joe Burrow and was inconsistent before winning the job and going on to have a record-setting year.

Fields had a similar spring. There were plays and practices where he looked like the five-star prospect that committed to the Bulldogs two years ago. There were others -- like a 4-for-13 spring game -- where it wasn't as apparent that he's the right guy to lead the Buckeye offense.

The thought was Fields, like Haskins, would get better throughout the offseason and be ready to run through the Big Ten by the fall but, as Day points out, the two situations aren't all that similar.

"We're coming off the heels of Dwayne Haskins, where he showed up on the scene and went from zero to 60 so fast without playing a lot of games," the head coach said. "But that was a very different situation. Dwayne was going into his third year. These guys just showed up a couple of months ago. So it's not going to be that fast.

"I know everybody wants to get way ahead of themselves and start talking about Heisman but how about winning the starting quarterback job first?"

While Haskins was a first-year starter before leaving for the NFL, he redshirted as a true freshman and learned behind J.T. Barrett in 2017. The next year, he got a taste of playing for the Buckeyes in eight games in relief of Barrett.

Fields, on the other hand, has never taken a true snap wearing scarlet and gray. He's only in his second year in college and, despite playing 12 games at Georgia last season, he walked into a new program with a new playbook and new terminology in January. Following spring, Fields admitted that he still didn't know the full playbook, making it hard to name him the starting quarterback.

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In an ideal situation, Day would like the quarterback position to be decided sooner rather than later. He said at Big Ten Media Days that he hopes to name a starter within the first two weeks of fall camp. But that all depends on the players involved, and Day isn't going to set a firm date. "If it goes into the third week of preseason camp then either they're both competing at a high level or nobody is stepping up yet," he said.

Ultimately, it's more than likely that Fields will be Ohio State's opening day starter. He is the most talented quarterback on the roster and fits the offense the Buckeyes want to run to near perfection. But Day, a first-year head coach, doesn't want to set a precedent that highly rated or talented players just get positions handed to them.

Instead, Fields will continue to compete for the job this fall, this time with Hoak, and the best player will win.

"It's going to be a journey and I'm just excited to see where it's going to go," Day said.