EVANSTON-Hunter Johnson’s first start as Northwestern’s quarterback didn’t go as anyone planned. Not fans. Not coaches. And certainly not Johnson himself.
Expectations were sky-high for the former five-star prospect and Clemson quarterback, whom fans envisioned throwing pinpoint, NFL Films-quality spirals all over the field to rescue a Northwestern offense that finished 101st in the nation in yards last season.
Instead, Johnson often looked overwhelmed in the Wildcats’ season-opening 17-7 loss to Stanford on Aug. 31. He appeared tentative and indecisive, and missed on several throws. He looked, as head coach Pat Fitzgerald said repeatedly, like a second-year quarterback making his first start. Which, of course, he was.
But while fans feel anxious about Johnson, reactions are much more measured at the Walter Athletics Center. Both Johnson and offensive coordinator Mick McCall saw both positives and negatives in his performance.
“There’s a lot of things to learn from,” said Johnson after Friday’s practice. “There’s some good things and some bad things. That comes from every game, really.”
Like every quarterback after every game, there are some throws that Johnson would like to have back. He may have more than most, though, after completing just 6 of 17 passes (35.3%) for 55 yards against the Cardinal, with no touchdowns and two interceptions. (He also had a fumble that was recovered by Stanford for a touchdown.)
How poor are those numbers? Right now, Johnson is 122nd, dead-last, among all FBS quarterbacks in passing efficiency, with a quarterback rating of 38.9 – a little over half of the QBR of No. 121, Blake Barnett of USF, who has a 73.6.
“There were a couple ball placements, a couple passes here and there, that if I move a little farther to the right or pull it down a little bit, (would have been) completions, and we’re moving upfield,” he said.
“That comes with fundamentals. Just getting my feet right and my eyes right. Going back to the little things. Being able to step up in the pocket and make some runs felt good.”
Asked to identify what those little things are, he talked about his footwork and his release.
“Looking back on the film, I’ve been trying to work on my feet and finishing my throws,” said Johnson, who played in his first game since 2017, when he was at Clemson. “Just kind of getting back to my fundamentals. Just quickening things up with my feet a little bit, and slowing things down with my throw. As opposed to the other way around, with slow feet and then trying to rush the throw.”
So Johnson worked last week on his physical technique. The other half of the equation is what happens between the ears, and McCall thinks that Johnson needs to trust himself and be more decisive in when making reads.
“He has to continue to get better about eliminating choices,” said McCall, who saw his offense produce just 210 total yards to rank 129th out of 130 FBS teams in total offense. “Just put your eyes in the right spot, make a decision and play.”
He thinks Johnson’s problem right now is paralysis from analysis – something that’s not unique among Northwestern players. Johnson is spending too much time thinking, instead of just gripping it and ripping it.
“Like a lot of our guys, they’re going to overthink everything. When you start thinking too much, that’s a problem,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing, having confidence in that process.
McCall added that he saw improvement in Johnson in the second half, when “he got more confident and started to make some plays.” Johnson didn’t complete a pass on the Wildcats’ lone touchdown drive at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but he ran for 31 of their 50 total yards and was able to draw a pass interference penalty on one throw. “(The drive) was great for us, creating momentum,” said Johnson.
There just wasn’t enough of that momentum to go around. The Wildcats ran six or fewer plays on nine of their 12 drives and had the ball for just 21:48 of 60 minutes.
Northwestern’s offense had about a bad a day as any in recent memory, yet they still trailed Stanford by just a field goal in the fourth quarter. If they had made another play here or there, they could have won the game. That's both encouraging and maddening to Johnson.
"We know we’ve left plays out there that cost us," he said.
Then, to add injury to insult, the program announced last week that backup TJ Green – who came on in relief of Johnson and gave the offense a spark in both of his possessions against the Cardinal – would be out for the year after suffering a foot injury in the third quarter.
While Johnson and McCall were devastated by the news, they both think that Green’s absence will accelerate Johnson’s development. Johnson and Green had been splitting reps pretty much 50/50 throughout fall camp as they battled for the starting job. Now Johnson will get all of the starter’s reps to himself. McCall says that that represents an increase of about “25 or maybe 30 percent” from what he was getting before.
“Any reps you can get will help,” said Johnson. McCall agrees, saying that “right now, (we are) erring on the side of getting Hunter (even more reps) because I think we have to, just to help him.”
However, the coach warns that practice reps aren’t a panacea that will cure all maladies by themselves.
“It’s one thing to get reps in practice or get reps on the VR (virtual reality) machine, or get reps by watching somebody else on film,” he said. “But it’s another thing on game reps. They’re always helpful. Hopefully he learned from some of the things that happened and will get better.”
Plus, he points out that, because of NCAA practice limits – players can spend no more than 20 hours on football activities per week – “there aren’t enough reps in practice. There’s just not. You have to do the things in film room. You have to do the things by watching film, or watching the VR. The more he does there, the more he’ll feel more comfortable, more confident.”
Johnson isn’t the only offensive player looking in the mirror this week. The offensive line struggled, receivers dropped passes and the unit as a whole committed too many penalties, including an embarrassing delay-of-game infraction on a third-and-2 play. They were both disappointed and ticked off by their dismal performance.
“We’ve flushed it, but we had all kinds of opportunities to make some things happen and, for whatever reason, we didn’t do that,” said McCall, who is in his 12th year in Evanston. “So we’ve got to do a better job of executing things in the moment. Then we’ll feel better about some things.
“Until that happens…what comes first, the cart or the horse? I don’t know, but that’s got to happen. We’ve got to do that, period.”
McCall is kind of glad Northwestern had a bye last week so that the players had a chance to stew about their loss before they immerse themselves in preparing to take on UNLV on Saturday.
“It would’ve been nice to have a game (last week), but it’s probably better…because it still eats on you. Hopefully that gets us more honed in and focused, and let’s go play.”
