Kansas State Wildcats have plan to keep quarterback Avery Johnson healthy next season
It’s impossible to know exactly how many snaps Avery Johnson will take as Kansas State’s starting quarterback next season. It’s also too early to say how often the talented sophomore will be asked to throw the ball downfield vs. how many times he will get to make plays with his speed as a runner.
But Matt Wells has a vision for how all that will shake out.
Wells, a former head coach at Texas Tech and the current quarterbacks coach at K-State, wants Johnson to be in command of the Wildcats’ offense for every single play this year. No exceptions.
That means keeping him healthy over the course of a long season. How can Wells make that happen?
“That will be a question that will be asked of me probably 25 more times before the end of August, because that will be a key,” Wells said. “That’s a key every week. I think as I look ahead to, hopefully, a 15-game season, I am preparing for Avery Johnson to play ever snap over 15 games. And that’s how he has to prepare his body over the summer, gaining weight, gaining strength.”
Wells has a plan.
It will be interesting to see how it works, because K-State quarterbacks have found it difficult to avoid injuries in recent years. Skylar Thompson was in and out of the lineup during his entire career with the Wildcats. Then Adrian Martinez was unable to stay on the field, which allowed Will Howard to guide the team to a Big 12 championship in 2022.
Howard followed that up by starting every regular-season game last year, but he was hobbled in some contests.
K-State is hoping for a cleaner bill of health for Johnson, a 6-foot-2 and 188-pound playmaker from Maize. But keeping him healthy may not be easy when you consider how often he will be running next season. Even if new offensive coordinator Conor Riley limits designed runs for him, Johnson is sure to scramble every few plays.
Nevertheless, Wells is confident that Johnson can handle it.
“You gain weight as a quarterback to get up off the ground and play another snap,” Wells said. “You’re already to going to take seven or eight hits in the pocket a game. That’s just the cost of doing business throwing the ball. And then you’re going to take some scrambling.
“That’s when it is important to know when to get down. Did I get the first down? I’m in the open field and I can slide and I can step out of bounds and be smart. And then, when do I need to put my pads down on fourth-and-short or on the goal line when the game is on the line? I think he will have enough savvy to know when to do that.”
The Wildcats will help him some in that regard.
Riley has made it clear that he wants K-State to have a dynamic offense next season. Wells feels the same way, going so far as to say no one will ask Johnson to run the ball a whopping 317 times like former QB Collin Klein did more than a decade ago.
Wells is hoping for a more balanced approached, which he sums up by saying, “I would like to throw the ball to score, and I would like to run the ball to win.”
The plan is for Johnson to do it all next season. But the plan is also for him to stay healthy.
