Still More in the Tank

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Two-hundred and sixteen days remain until we'll see Avery Johnson throw a football in a game again, until we'll see him evade would-be tacklers again, and until we'll hopefully see him shine again, and perhaps better than ever before, when Kansas State opens the 2025 season against Iowa State in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, on August 23.

That's 31 weeks. A little more than seven months. And as the sun rises and sets in the Flint Hills, better believe Johnson will be inside the office of co-offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Matt Wells studying film of his 2024 performance, dissecting the movements, and reads, and checks, and decisions that shaped a sophomore campaign that ended with the greatest bowl game comeback victory in school history — a miraculous 44-41 win over Rutgers in the Rate Bowl, which sent Johnson and the Wildcats out with a 9-4 record and a trophy.

"It was really just a great learning opportunity," Johnson says, standing outside the locker room at Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona, after most his teammates have left. "Thirteen games. Sometimes, you just have to learn situations the hard way, and I had ups and downs this year but being able to finish with nine wins in my first year as a starter, I'm blessed to be in the position and to be the quarterback here at K-State.

"Obviously, I'm going to work this offseason so we can shoot for higher goals next year."

Sometimes it's easy to forget that Johnson, a Wichita native who arrived as the No. 1-rated dual-threat passer in the Class of 2023, is just 20 years old. Lauded as one of the top up-and-coming sophomores in college football, Johnson entered bowl season joining Alabama's Jalen Milroe as the only Power 4 quarterbacks in the country to throw for 2,500 yards and rush for at least 525 yards. Entering bowl season, he was one of six Power 4 quarterbacks to throw at least 22 touchdowns and rush for at least six scores.

He finished his sophomore season throwing for the fifth most passing yards in a single season (2,712) in K-State history and with the most touchdown passes (25) ever in a single season, eclipsing a mark set by Will Howard and Ell Roberson, and emphatically breaking that preseason stigma from outsiders that he was merely a running quarterback (he had 605 rushing yards, averaging 5.4 yards per carry, and scored seven touchdowns on the ground).

"It's special," Johnson says of his touchdown record. "I'm going to try and come back and find things I need to work on in the offseason. I left a lot of touchdowns out there this season. I want to just continue to grow and be a better passer and be more accurate in the passing game so I can set the record again next year."

Among Johnson's feats as a sophomore, here's one particularly worth noting: Johnson joined 1998 Heisman Trophy finalist Michael Bishop as the only two quarterbacks in K-State history with at least 2,700 passing yards and 575 rushing yards in a single season.

Meanwhile, Johnson's 10 career victories rank in the top-15 by a K-State quarterback since 1990 and his 71.4% winning percentage ranks top-10 among signal callers with at least 10 starts.

In all, Johnson has amassed 4,092 yards of total offense, including 3,191 passing yards and 901 rushing yards in his two seasons, and he's responsible for 44 touchdowns (30 passing, 14 rushing).

Coupled with last season's 28-19 win over NC State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, Johnson is the first quarterback in school history to win consecutive bowl games in his first two seasons on campus.

Wells knows that there's "more in the tank."

"What we've seen is a young quarterback that is learning how to play college football and learning to play within a system and getting different guys involved as well as learning how to figure out the dynamics of being a pocket passer versus scrambling and using all of his natural ability," Wells says. "He's only scratched the surface. He has a lot more in the tank. There are next steps for him in climbing and pushing himself to greater limits."

One key element? Decision making.

"The game situations, such as managing the clock, mastering the situations, third downs, backed up, red zone, two-minutes before a half — all of those things, we certainly had some really good moments as a first-year starter, and we've had some learning moments as well," Wells says. "Taking all of those elements throughout the offseason and continuing to learn and gain confidence from them will propel him to take a huge step as a junior and second-year starter."

Wells was announced January 4, 2024 as K-State's associate head coach, co-offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach, and he brought 25 years of coaching experience, including nine years as a head coach, to Manhattan. Among Wells' success stories was Jordan Love at Utah State, who accounted for 9,003 yards of total offense in his career — including 3,567 yards and 32 touchdowns in 2018 — before declaring for the NFL Draft following his junior season in 2019.

Wells played quarterback at Utah State from 1994 to 1996 and was a member of two conference championship teams.

Shortly after Wells arrived at K-State, he said that Johnson had "God-given talent" and was "a football junkie."

Last season, Johnson went out and threw for 479 yards and five touchdowns and no interceptions and added 296 rushing yards and seven touchdowns to earn votes for the 2023 Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year award while playing behind the record-setting Howard. Among his biggest highlights, he had a school record-tying five rushing touchdowns at Texas Tech.

Earlier this season, Johnson threw for at least 250 yards over the Oklahoma State, Colorado, West Virginia and Kansas games, the longest streak by a Wildcat against conference foes since Jake Waters over the final four Big 12 games in 2014. He set a career high with 320 total offensive yards against Kansas, which came on the heels of a career-high 298 passing yards at West Virginia. He had three passing touchdowns and two rushing scores against Oklahoma State, becoming the first Wildcat to hit those marks against a conference opponent since Collin Klein at West Virginia in 2012.

But there were areas for growth this season as well, as he threw a pair of interceptions in losses at BYU, at Houston and against Arizona State.

"We can improve decision making within a game in terms of situation mastery, and that is very typical for any quarterback between your first, second and third year of starting," Wells says. "It's just so hard to simulate in practice. You can talk about it in the meeting room all you want, and we certainly have, but until you live it and go through it, those are the ultimate experience opportunities a quarterback can have. The second biggest area to improve is just being more accurate on deep balls and that comes with knowing your receivers better and then knowing you better and us being better out on the perimeter as well as different throws of air and how you lay your footballs up.

"We left some throws out there, and he'll tell you that no matter how much good stuff he did. Anytime you go into an offseason with a returning quarterback coach and a returning quarterback, you have a lot of good and a lot to continue to push yourself to be one of the best in the league."

There's a sense of pride that Wells felt during Johnson's first season as a full-time starter.

"I was proud of him growing as a leader throughout the season while he was still trying to figure out how to play quarterback and leading by production versus leading vocally," Wells says. "A lot of that comes naturally and a lot of that comes with time. It's easy to say we want it all right now, but to be a young starter in the Big 12 he went over a bunch of hurdles and performed well and then continued to learn how to lead with the guys around him. That's what I'm proudest of because he grew. I think he grew during the season where we didn't make the same mistakes twice very often. I'm proud of that as his coach.

"You continue to go with him side by side, hip by hip, because every one of his successes I find satisfaction and glory in, and for every one of his struggles, they're on me, and I take that personally. What I'm proudest of is he and I weathered some storms on the field together and won nine games and he had a really good season. It's nice to put it into perspective at the end of the year and to see and compare how he's produced compared to his peers and previous quarterbacks at K-State, but I also know how much work is left to be done for him to achieve his goals and dreams."

The journey begins against Iowa State in Ireland.

And Johnson will be bringing Rate Bowl record-setting running back Dylan Edwards and a young, yet talented, squad along with him.

"We just have a good young core right now that we want to build around offensively," Johnson says. "We want to come together this offseason and put those pieces together so we can go out and strive for something bigger next year."

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Dylan Edwards

Will Howard

Avery Johnson

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