Justin Fields Says He'll Be Ready to Play Against Alabama by Monday Night

The Buckeye quarterback told reporters he will be ready to go for the national championship game.

Last time we saw Justin Fields, he was audibly groaning as he sat down at a microphone after the Buckeyes whooped Clemson in the Sugar Bowl and Fields had played the game of his life.

From the minute that game ended, the clock began ticking to Jan. 11 and the national championship game against the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide.

During a season where the Buckeyes have hardly been at full-strength, there were plenty of fans worried about Fields ability to recover from the nasty shot he took in the ribs in the Sugar Bowl.

After a 6-touchdown performance in the College Football Playoff Semifinals and a game against the top-ranked team in the country looming, that's a valid worry.

But Fields told the media this afternoon quite simply "I'll be good by Monday night," when he was asked how he was feeling and how his recovery was going.

For as short as his answer was to that question, he did offer some additional insight on comments he made after the previous game (which you can watch here).

Essentially, Fields spoke about the rapid process during which he was treated on the sideline and sent back into the game after taking that hit from Clemson linebacker James Skalski. Fields led some people to have the impression, based on his postgame answer, that he wasn't evaluated thoroughly enough before he came back after just one play and threw a touchdown pass to Chris Olave.

Ryan Day Previews Alabama, Says Buckeyes are On Track to Play

“I think what I said after the game was kind of taken out of context. I just want to make one thing clear, it's that I have my full trust in the trainers here at Ohio State and Dr. (Jim) Borchers,” Fields said. “I wasn't hesitant on taking anything that they would give me, but I was just trying to do whatever I could do to get back on the field. I think those guys handled it the way I would have wanted it to be handled.

“I just put my full trust in those guys and I see how they deal with guys here, and I have personal relationships with all of them. I just don't want anything I've said in the postgame interview to kind of get taken out of context and to be like, ‘Oh, they just shot him up and sent him back out there.’ No. It wasn't like that. I think they did a full analysis of my injury and how it was, and they did what they thought was best. I was fully comfortable with that.”

-----

You may also like:

Justin Hilliard Knows Monday's Game Will Be His Last as a Buckeye

Kerry Coombs Previews the Challenge of Playing a Dynamic Alabama Offense

Justin Fields Wins Silver Football Award

Cardale Jones Claps Back at Nick Saban's Daughter's Twitter Accusation

Trey Sermon Reminding Buckeye Fans of Ezekiel Elliott During 2014 CFP Title Run

CFP National Championship Tickets Extremely Limited, Pricey

-----

Be sure to stay locked into BuckeyesNow all the time!

Join the BuckeyesNow community!
Subscribe to the BuckeyesNow YouTube channel
Follow Brendan on Twitter: @brendangulick22
Follow BuckeyesNow on Twitter: @BuckeyesNowSI
Like and follow BuckeyesNow on Facebook