You said productive. From an individual perspective, that means statistics and play relative to his peers. You didn't say anything about W-L.
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A very lawyerly response, and a correct one as far as it goes. I plead guilty to imprecision. What I meant was what I meant, however: He was the key to winning 4 hugely important games in a row as a senior and he'll be enshrined forever in Utes fans' hearts for those games. But...until his senior year he was an ongoing disappointment.
He couldn't even throw as a junior after the injury he suffered in the season-opener against Oregon State. And that game came after he sat out the entire 2006 season, because the injury that happened the ended his 2005 season short hadn't healed, and really took away from his running ability.
An ongoing disappointment until his senior year? Another patently false statement.
This argument is stupid. Let's just call it off. LAuTe is entitled to his opinion (Brian Johnson was an average qb who won some big games) and SoCalPat and I are entitled to ours (NATTY).
Agree to disagree.
How is it a stupid argument? The guy was the starting QUARTERBACK on what was indubitably the team that earned the greatest season in Utah’s storied football history. He ought to be everyone Ute fan’s favorite player in history. But all the time I see lists of everyone’s ten favorites, a bunch of local products are on there, but often not Brian Johnson. It makes my blood boil. 2008 would not have happened without him. He’s Whit’s Andre Miller. Quarterback is the most important position in football, arguably in sport. Johnson is the program’s most important player ever. PERIOD!
LAUte is nuts.
I said the argument is stupid because, well, it is a stupid thing to argue about for the reasons you point out. In this world there are flowers to sniff, great cities to visit, incredible books to read, and wonderful and odd people to meet. Those and many other pursuits are more worthy of people's time than this debate. Internet-arguing about whether Brian Johnson is an all-time great quarterback or just a good quarterback strikes me as about as interesting as arguing if Donald Trump is a good person. The answer is obvious so why waste time debating it?
Probably the most important characteristics that Brian possessed that made him (eventually) great was he was a grinder, and was unflappable. He wasn't a serious talent, and never got a sniff from the NFL, but he persevered and got better.
I'm assuming Taylor sees similar characteristics in Huntley, though I think BJ probably wouldn't have had the same great senior season in the PAC-12, as the whole philosophy of depending on defense and Louie Sakoda wouldn't have been good enough to get through a PAC-12 schedule.
Better late than never for a stupid argument. I agree with LA Ute. He put a string of tremendous games together at the end of 2008. Before that, meh.
Pile on. Self-inflicted ridicule is my raison detre.
P.S. i love Brian too.
Ok let's discuss a couple of points:
1. Brian Johnson was an all time great. I rank him 3rd in qbs in my lifetime (smith and Mitchell). He had a good arm and made great decisions.
2. Johnson fought thru injuries until he was a senior. It's probably why he ran like a ninny. I remember the Louisville game where we won and he couldn't throw the ball 20 yards.
We close the deal in 2015 with a 2008 Brian. We had Travis Wilson, who threw for 289 yards in his last three games combined, or 47 yards fewer than Brian threw against Alabama. No QB in Utah history leaned more on defense and special teams than Travis Wilson. Brian would've glued Travis' ass to the bench.
Esp. against TCU and OSU. No last-second escapes at home. We would have been national champions in January 2009, not Sept. 2018.
But I didnt say Alex would have improved on our record, although I did speculate as to how much better the team would have been. I said he would have started over Brian and glued his ass to the bench.
Brian went down the 2008 stretch with David Reed, Freddy Brown, Braden Godfrey and Brent Casteel. Matt Asiata and Darrell Mack were the RB's and the OL was probably the best in Utah football history. Travis two best receivers that year, KScott and Covey, were injured the last month of 2015. No doubt Brian was a better QB than Travis. He also had better weapons.