By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

There is a movie that Jack Nicholson directed and starred in from 1990 called The Two Jakes. It’s a sequel to Nicholson’s classic Chinatown, but The Two Jakes doesn’t come close to matching the quality of the earlier film.

I bring this up because The Two Jakes could also be the title of a movie dramatizing the 2017 Georgia Bulldogs’ football season.

Picture it: a five-star quarterback named Jacob Eason comes to UGA to play and has a fairly successful first season. He’s ready for year two, when he hopes to take the next big step forward and lead the Dawgs to a national championship; but in the first quarter of the first game of the season, he injures his knee.

Entering the scene now is freshman Jake Fromm, who likely would have been redshirted had Eason stayed healthy. Fromm starts the next few games while Eason works his way back to health.

Now here comes the plot development: Fromm leads the offense to a bombastic 5-0 start, capping it off with a 41-0 shutout of conference rival Tennessee just as Eason gets healthy enough to at least enter the blowout and throw one pass, an incomplete effort. Discussion heats up: who should be starting for UGA?

Of course, the twist here is that this is no motion picture: it’s really happening. Fromm’s season so far just SEEMS like it was written by a Hollywood screenwriter, but he’s earned the right to start football games for a nationally ranked school, even at the expense of, ahem, last year’s model.

With Eason taking snaps during Saturday’s rout of the Volunteers, talk will only become more focused on what the quarterback situation in Athens is going to be going forward. Head Coach Kirby Smart hasn’t necessarily blared out his intentions, but it is almost certain that he is going to stick with Fromm.

He’s making the right call. Eason is a talented quarterback, but college football is a “what have you done for me lately?” kind of arena, and the answer to that question for both Jakes is vastly different.

Eason had his share of success in 2016, but he had his flaws too. Sure, it isn’t fair to expect otherwise of an 18-year-old; but it’s in the comparisons that hurt the older Jake.

Eason struggled to make long throws last year, whereas Fromm has had a much easier time making longer throws.

The younger Jake has proven to be a leader as well and for a team that can already run and play solid defense, a leader who can throw the ball a long way seems like it may be a large piece in the puzzle; maybe the final piece that leads to a national championship.

Smart will take the well-worn path of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and ride the Fromm train as far as it will take him. He’ll also be able to rest easy knowing that should anything happen to his freshman, he’s (currently) got a former five star prospect chomping at the bit to not be the forgotten man.

The coming weeks will be a huge test for Eason; unlikely to get any starts, will he be willing to ride the pine and watch a usurper be showered in glory?

Eason won’t lack for press coverage. There was plenty of talk about who would start before he was healthy; now that he seems to be back on track but Fromm has cemented his position, the spotlight will be on Eason’s reaction.

Will he fully support Fromm and his teammates from the sidelines?  Will he privately or publicly voice dissent?  We’ll all have to wait and see

It’s just the kind of juicy drama that would make for one hell of a sports flick.