Tulane’s Patience With Trace Johnson Timed Perfect With Memphis Debut

The Tulane Green Wave came away with more than a major victory in their walloping of the Memphis Tigers – they found a starting quarterback in Trace Johnson.

It wasn’t the most stat flashy night for the true freshman. He completed 52 percent of his passes for 165 yards and one touchdown to one interception.

But he showed traits that make you really stop and take a look at what the potential can look like.

Johnson showed a surprising awareness and had pocket presence, was willing to climb and escape it to make off schedule throws and generally didn’t look fazed by live pressure in his face in the form of the league’s top pass rush. He has an arm, and importantly, was comfortable slinging it.

There were also situational factors at play. The wind gusts that went up to nearly 40 mph in the second half were a considerable factor in this ball game.

One side of the ball seemed to be a bit more aware of that and played smarter.

A game plan is never going to be the sexiest when it’s built around a young quarterback in his first start with considerable wind gusts affecting the passing game against a defense like Memphis’.

You can assume and hope that the playbook will now open up a bit now that a start and major program win are under his belt.

It might make fans wonder a bit about why we hadn’t seen Johnson sooner.

A big reason that it made sense to wait until Week 7 to throw out a true freshman quarterback was figuring out the pass protection around him first.

Seven penalties by the offensive line aren’t exactly in line with that. They were responsible for nearly all of the nine flags thrown against the Wave.

They had four false starts and three holding calls against them. Two of those holding calls wiped out first downs.

After the second holding call on left guard Gresham Perry, he was subbed out following that series and the o-line saw a major shuffle.

They started the game with Ryan Mickow at left tackle, Perry at left guard, Gavin Marks at center, John Bock at right guard, and Reese Baker at right tackle.

When they took Perry out, Dominic Steward came in as the personnel replacement, but not at that role.

With the switch, Steward took over at left tackle, Baker moved to left guard, and Mickow moved to right tackle.

To their credit, they only had one false start penalty following the switch around half.

That was also protecting their young quarterback, and the switch worked.

Only one sack by the Tigers is an absolute win on the evening with a true freshman debuting under center. If this is the protection line that works best, it’s time to really build the offense designed around a winner.