Bowling Green State University
He was an all-state quarterback in high school and a MAC offensive player of the year when he was putting together a record-setting career at Bowling Green State University. He’s had a brush with the NFL, spending a couple of weeks with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2016 as an undrafted free-agent.
Now, Matt Johnson, a 24-year-old with a resume that’s gotten his foot in the door with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, is doing everything he can to pry it open.
“I see a lot of talent here,” Johnson said after a training camp practice last week at McMaster University.
“Obviously Zach (Collaros) and Jeremiah (Masoli) are proven and Everett (Golson is) a big-arm guy that has a lot of talent himself. I’m trying to learn as much as I can from them. I’m constantly asking them questions and they’re open books. They tell me and Cody (Keith) if we have any questions don’t be afraid to ask. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can from them.”
In describing the support system around him, Johnson’s also describing his situation. The Ticats’ QB picture is almost completely filled out and Johnson and Keith are in the background, doing everything they can to be more than a photobomb. But he understands his reality. His reps are limited, his odds high, his view in this camp almost strictly uphill. Barring the unforeseen, Collaros will start, Masoli will be the backup and Golson will eat up the rest of the reps in practice and short-yardage situations in games this year.
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Matt Johnson runs the ball himself in a contest against Memphis (Bowling Green State University)
So where does that leave Johnson? What can you do to seize this moment, as small as it may be?
“You can’t,” said Tiger-Cats coach and VP of football ops Kent Austin.
“So much of a guy in that position is a projection. A lot of classroom work, a lot of trying to test the depth of their understanding. As the quarterbacks are getting the reps, getting them to verbalize if they understand where to put their vision, what’s correct in their reads, their progressions, those type of things, what’s happening in real time. It’s going to be a projection.”
The road to a quarterbacking job is almost always a difficult one to navigate. Mike Reilly went through three NFL rosters in 2009 and then came in at the bottom of the BC Lions’ QB depth chart late in 2010. Matt Nichols signed with the Eskimos around the same time and is only going into his first full season in the CFL as a starter this year in Winnipeg. Trevor Harris is in a similar spot, having waited four seasons as Ricky Ray’s backup in Toronto, then had to out-wait Henry Burris a year in Ottawa before being the REDBLACKS’ starter.
He’s still learning the Canadian game, but Johnson already knows first-hand how bumpy this journey can be.
“It takes you back a little bit. You had success and you think it’ll carry on and it doesn’t,” he said. “You just have to deal with that, it’s football, I know that. That’s the profession I’m in.
“But at the same time it gave me the chance to step back and appreciate what I had. Taking a year off, I coached, I stayed around football and stuff and when this opportunity arose I felt like I was ready for it. I didn’t feel like I was away from the game or distant from it. I was I spent the year off well, I thought.”
In addition to training last year, Johnson was the quarterbacks coach at his former high school, Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, PA. and even helped out with a midget football team as well. At his old high school, he worked closely with the team’s new star QB, Tayvon Bowers, who committed to Wake Forest as a junior. (He appears in Complex Networks’ QB1 doc on Bowers, Beyond the Lights.)
“It was different but I loved it. When I’m done playing that’s what I want to do, I want to coach college,”Johnson said. “To put yourself in the coaches’ shoes, you appreciate what they do so much more (with) getting prepared for practice, after practice. We’re about to go to lunch now. They’re going into meetings and stuff. You really learn to appreciate what they do.”
“He could step into any huddle in any league in the world and he has those little intangibles that those quarterbacks that have had success seem to have.”
Ticats’ OC Stefan Ptaszek
Johnson celebrates after winning the MAC Championship in 2015 (Bowling Green State University)
Johnson is hoping that his coaching days are still years away. He completed 67.3 per cent of his passes in his senior year at Bowling Green, for 4,946 yards and 46 touchdowns. Observers at the Ticats camp have said even in his limited reps, he’s had a couple of eye-popping moments. Along with them though, are the hiccups that come with being a young pro and dealing with new rules that he’d probably never considered until he found out that Hamilton had his neg-list rights.
“He’s got a great presence and a calming personality. He could step into any huddle in any league in the world and he has those little intangibles that those quarterbacks that have had success seem to have,” said Ticats offensive coordinator and receivers coach Stefan Ptaszek.
“He’s really accurate and he’s about the same height as our starting guy. He’s cut from the same cloth. He makes a decision to throw, it’s a quick release and it’s smooth. He’s a great kid to work with. I truthfully haven’t seen a ton of his college film but every time he’s touched the ball here he’s looked good.”
“With Matt you can tell he’s thrown the ball a lot,” Austin said. “He came out of a passing background and he’s very accurate. He has a sense of timing, has a good intuition about the game, those types of things. He seems to be pretty intelligent.”
A four-year player in the CFL in the 1990s, Ptaszek played for BC, Hamilton and Toronto. He knows that skill and capability can sometimes be trumped by circumstance, or even luck.
“It’s as much the stuff you do off the field as it is on,” he said. “There are a ton of guys that have the core athletic ability to get it done and those intangibles and they persevere and look at it long-term. Our first chance may not be the one. Most of us got cut several times before we found a CFL team.”
“Coaches change, players move around. You don’t want to burn any bridges,” Johnson said. “I’m trying to be a good listener, a good learner and show these coaches that if something were to happen…like (Ptaszek) said, it’s networking.”
