The Georgia Tech football team could be without one of their scholarship quarterbacks for the entire season as Lucas Johnson’s injury could be a season ending injury.
The season for Georgia Tech quarterback Lucas Johnson may be over before ever even stared as Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson revealed to the assembled media that the quarterbacks injury could be a season ending injury. While we didn’t learn the specificity of the injury that Johnson sustained, we did learn that it was a non-contact injury.
Unfortunately, non-contact injuries often mean a ligament was damage in some way. That being said, Paul Johnson also told the media that Johnson will be having an MRI on his injury and potential surgery if needed on Thursday.
Entering the season, Johnson was expected to the back up quarterback to TaQuon Marshall but now that Johnson appears to be out long term, the Yellow Jackets depth chart at quarterback isn’t exactly deep. The Jackets with Johnson’s injury had to move Jame Graham back to quarterback from wide receiver.
#GaTech backup QB Lucas Johnson who was a probable #2 this year behind TaQuon Marshall may be out for the year. MRI tomorrow and possible surgery as well. CPJ said it was the second time in three years he lost a QB to non-contact injury. James Graham has also been out too.
— Kelly Quinlan (@Kelly_Quinlan) August 15, 2018
The Jackets were originally hoping to play Graham on the outside to help alleviate injury issues that the wide receivers were having themselves. However, with Johnson’s injury, the Jackets were forced to move Graham back. Graham will now most likely be the third string quarterback and seeing playing time this season won’t be totally out of the question.
Going forward, TaQuon Marshall will still be the starting quarterback of course barring injury and behind him the Jackets will most likely start the season with redshirt freshman Tobias Oliver as the second string quarterback. Oliver is a former three-star recruit out of Warner Robins, Georgia and a member of the 2017 recruiting class. After Oliver, Graham will slide into the third spot on the depth chart though the Jackets coaching staff hope that Graham won’t have to take meaningful snaps this season.
That being said, Lucas Johnson’s injury doesn’t just create a cloudy quarterback situation for 2018 but it creates a cloudy situation for 2019 and 2020. If Johnson had been healthy this season, there was a chance he could’ve earned himself the default starting job for next year especially if he ended up having playing time this season. But now with the injury, the Yellow Jackets will have a completely dead even quarterback battle for the 2018 starting quarterback job which isn’t a horrible but at the same time, you’d like to have an idea of who the probable starter would be entering both spring and fall camp.