Nate Johnson's apology after UCLA win an unnecessary act of accountability

SALT LAKE CITY — In fairness, Nate Johnson is not supposed to be in this position.

The redshirt freshman quarterback at the University of Utah lost out to Bryson Barnes in a fall camp QB2 battle, which also served to decide the most-viable option to start the Aug. 31 opener in case Cam Rising was not all the way back from the torn ACL he suffered at the Rose Bowl.

Rising was not ready to go, so Barnes started, while Johnson's skill set demanded he also see the field in certain instances. Call it a quarterback platoon in Rising's absence by head coach Kyle Whittingham.

By the fourth quarter at Baylor on Sept. 9, Whittingham had seen enough of the platoon.

Johnson engineered a fourth-quarter comeback for a 20-13 win in Waco, and the offense has been his since. A 13-of-21, 193-yard effort against Weber State was followed by 9-of-17 for 117 yards against UCLA. Both games were wins, both games were run-heavy. Against the Bruins specifically, whether by design or out of necessity for Johnson's inexperience, the play-calling could be defined as bland.

Johnson fumbled twice against UCLA, but no rational observer watching the game believes he played poorly. Either way, Johnson took to X Saturday night to get something off his chest.

"I apologize for the way the game was played out," Johnson wrote at 9:32 p.m., roughly five hours after the game finished. "Credit to our defense for an amazing performance. We will be better next week. Our offense is still awesome, just things will get cleaned up. See you guys next Friday."

Again, Johnson is not supposed to be here.

In a perfect world, Rising is healthy and shouldering the load, with Johnson learning from Rising and Ludwig, while still providing cameos when the situation calls for it. That scenario may still play out, Rising returning and Johnson mostly taking a backseat, but it hasn't yet, which brings us back to Johnson's tweet.

Credit to Johnson for taking responsibility for whatever is currently ailing Utah's 112th-ranked offense, even if raising his hand to take the fall is misguided. Although, Johnson shouldn't feel he is in a position where he needs to apologize to anyone outside the Eccles Football Center, at least in this case.

He is young — still just 19. He is green as a quarterback at the Power Five level, and he is trying to figure it all out on the fly and under a bright light for a program that expects to be playing in the Pac-12 championship game Dec. 1 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

"That's admirable if he's taking accountability," Whittingham said Monday during his normal weekly press conference. "I don't know if it's accurate. There's a lot that went into our lack of production, and you start with UCLA's defense. They're a really athletic, fast, defense that is going to give a lot of people fits this year.

"Nate is a standup guy and he is learning how to be a leader," he added. "That, to me, I take that as a positive thing from Nate, that he would point the finger at himself, even though I'm not buying into that."

Added wide receiver Devaughn Vele: "It shows a lot about his character doing something like that, but at the same time, we don't want him doing that because we don't want him thinking it's his fault. That's why there's 11 guys on the field, it's not just one guy. Obviously, he plays a big part because the quarterback position is one of the most important positions on the field, but at the end of the day, we have to pass block, we have to catch the ball, we have to run the ball.

"At the end of the day, it's good to see that he's taking the initiative to take that blame, but it's not on him, it's on the offense as its entirety. It's good to see it, but it's not all on him."

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