Monday October 29, 2001

Maxx Wolfson

Alex Luna walked into the UA locker room after Saturday night's 41-34 loss to USC shaking his head. Anthony Banks, and the rest of the Wildcat football team, walked into the locker room upset as well. But nobody in the room showed as much emotion as Jason Johnson.

The junior quarterback, who usually talks to reporters after the game until all questions are answered, wasn't able to respond to more than a couple queries before he broke down crying and was taken out of the locker room by offensive coordinator Rick Dykes.

With tears running down his face, Johnson somberly blamed the loss on himself.

"As a quarterback, you got to make the big plays down the stretch," he said. "I made the critical error, and it just really hurts."

But nothing was harder for Johnson to say than what he told the other UA quarterbacks minutes earlier as they were huddled together.

He said, "I'm sorry."

Earlier in the season, Johnson's leadership ability was questioned.

He's not a rah-rah guy. He's soft-spoken, almost giddy. He constantly defers credit for anything he does well. He probably doesn't get up in people's faces when they drop a pass.

Johnson - who only had 11 pass attempts for his career before this season - couldn't be that type of leader for the team.

But Saturday night, he became a leader by saying the words, "I'm sorry," Johnson asserted himself as the leader of the Wildcats football team.

He showed the rest of his team that he's willing to take the good with the bad. Unfortunately for his sake, there has been plenty of the bad this season.

The comments made by Johnson reminded me of something that former quarterback Ortege Jenkins said after last year's 27-24 loss to UCLA.

Following the game, Jenkins took sole responsibility for the loss.

"I never thought I would play a game like this­" Jenkins said. "It was by far the worst game I've played since I put this uniform on. When you talk about the passing game, you talk about the quarterback. I'm sorry I let my teammates down."

After a game, a quarterback - or any player - should not have to apologize to his teammates for a loss.

UA played like a football team deserving of a victory in the second half - something that has been missing for most of the season, and much of that credit should be given to Johnson.

He completed 23 of 43 passes for a career-high 311 yards and had two touchdowns (one throwing and one rushing). He also threw four interceptions.

But all of the interceptions can't be blamed on the Puyallup, Wash., native.

He was sacked six times in the game, not counting the number of times he had to run for his life when he was escaping a Trojan defender, or he was hit right after a throw.

But once again, Johnson did not place the blame on the offensive line. The same offensive line that let both UA quarterbacks - Johnson and his backup, freshman John Rattay - receive concussions last week.

"I just want to give credit to our team for fighting the whole way," Johnson said. "Our offensive line gave me enough time, and my teammates made plays. We just came up a little short."

Sophomore running back Clarence Farmer said Johnson should not pull the entire loss on his shoulders.

"He doesn't deserve to put the loss on himself because it's a team thing," Farmer said. "Regardless of what people say, I commend Jason because he took a pounding. The fact that he got up and played down-for-down made me check myself. He is taking these big hits and I can't run the ball. I mean, what kind of player am I?"

Senior defensive end Eli Wnek agreed.

"When you play quarterback, you are in the limelight," he said. "We've got a lot of respect for Jason for just hanging in there and for taking shot after shot."

Like the clich&eacut; says, "there is no 'I' in team." There's no "I" in Jason Johnson, either.