Husky Roster Review: Johnson Leads Walk-On QB Contingent

Walking on the University of Washington football team is tough enough, but doing it as a non-scholarship quarterback is twice as hard.

Those guys, no matter how hard they pursue the Rudy dream, take an distant\ backseat to the QBs with big reputations, recruiting stories to tell and that all important financial aid.

Face it, in the DeBoer/Grubb offensive machine, the signal callers who show up for free and all idealistic tend to do little more than stretch out with each other and then lob passes in practice ... to other position groups.

Scrimmage reps are near impossible to come by. Game reps are impossible. Flashing signals from the sideline on is about as exciting as it gets.

That said, meet Alex Johnson, who's trying to change things up some as far as this UW quarterback hierarchy goes.

He's one of four walk-on quarterbacks on the roster, a transfer from Santa Barbara City College, someone who came in this past spring looking like he can handle greater responsibility.

Going down the roster from No. 0 to 99, Johnson, who wears No. 19 on offense, is next up in a series of profiles about each of the Huskies' scholarship players and assorted walk-ons, summing up their spring football performances and surmising what might come next for them.

Alex Johnson was a quarterback at Seattle's Blanchet High School before spending the past two seasons at Santa Barbara City College in California.

Alex Johnson hangs out with fellow Husky QBs Dylan Morris (5), Teddy Purcell (17), Michael Penix Jr. (9) and Tyson Lang (14) in Dempsey Indoor.

In this balance drill, the 6-foot-6, 214-pound Alex Johnson is athletic enough to keep his feet during spring practice as a coach tries to knock him off course.

Alex Johnson does the requisite Husky publicity photo shoot on a visit to campus before joining the UW football team in the spring.

Fellow walk-on QB Teddy Purcell hasn't played in a Husky game in two seasons, but he traveled to some away outings last fall. The 6-foot-1, 184-pound Purcell, shown with Michael Penix Jr., is from Menlo Park, California.

The 6-foot-1, 202-pound Tyson Lang is a sophomore walk-on from Snohomish, Washington, in his third season at the UW. He's also a certifiable race-car driver. He's shown with Michael Penix Jr.

A redshirt freshman from Oregon City, Oregon, the 6-foot-3, 212-pound Camdyn Stiegeler is a walk-on entering his second season at the UW. He missed spring ball with an injury.

At 6-foot-6 and 214 pounds, Johnson certainly brings exceptional dimensions to the position. He moves well, throws a decent ball, has a competitive streak in him.

With one-time 5-star recruit Sam Huard departing the Husky depth chart for Cal Poly, Johnson filled in at the No. 3 quarterback spot in April. He led a couple of scoring drives in a Friday scrimmage. He threw a touchdown pass in the final spring scrimmage.

However, reality is the highly regarded Austin Mack, at 6-foot-6 and 210 pounds, reports as a reclassified freshman in a month from Folsom, California, and likely slides into that third QB spot on the depth chart.

The following season, EJ Caminong, a savvy kid with plenty of swagger from Seattle's Garfield High School and the class of 2024, throws his name into the competition, pushing of all the walk-ons farther down the ladder.

Johnson will be hard-pressed to keep up because, well, that's the way it is at almost every Power 5 program. Scholarship guys take all the snaps and walk-ons, all big deals in high school, get humbled by the process.

Still, you never know. After all, for those who remember back that far, the Huskies started four different quarterbacks during a 1972 injury-filled season, during the Sonny Sixkiller era. Of course, each one had a scholarship.

ALEX JOHNSON FILE

Service: Johnson has 12 spring practices under his Husky belt and a couple of productive scrimmage stints. He brought Husky spring football to a glorious end by drilling a 30-yard touchdown pass over the middle to Owen Coutts.

Stats: A Seattle native, he completed 194 of 347 passes for 2,468 yards and 21 touchdowns, with 13 interceptions in his career at the California JC level.

Role: Johnson held the No. 3 quarterback role throughout following the school's spring break, but the role might be hard to hang onto considering the next wave of recruits are coming.

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