Johnstone Closes Career At Site Of Greatest Adversity
by Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
SAN ANTONIO — As he nears the exit ramp of his college career, Tyler Johnstone isn’t much interested in focusing on a milepost he passed long ago.
Johnstone’s UO finale, against Texas Christian in the Alamo Bowl on Saturday, will be played two years and three days after Johnstone suffered the first of two major knee injuries that cost him his 2014 season. Oregon’s charismatic left tackle tore an ACL in the Ducks’ win over Texas in the 2013 Alamo Bowl, forcing him to watch from the sideline as the team reached the College Football Playoff National Championship game last season.
Earlier this week, UO offensive line coach Steve Greatwood spoke of Johnstone “going back to the scene of the crime” and having a chance to “complete his mission.” On Wednesday, though, Johnstone wouldn’t get caught up in that storyline.
“I’m not really thinking too much about last time we were here,” Johnstone said. “I’m more focused on TCU, what lies ahead for us this week, this year’s Alamo Bowl.”
For sure, the Horned Frogs have reason to give Oregon’s offensive line pause. The TCU defensive line features two first-team all-Big 12 players, end Josh Carraway and tackle Davion Pierson. Carraway teams with Mike Tuaua to form the most athletic defensive end tandem the Ducks have faced this season.
Thus, Johnstone is right to be focused on the task at hand. But that will only be the latest step in what’s been an Oregon career marked by high-level play for three of the last four years, and the injuries that sidelined him for all of 2014.
The Alamo Bowl is in line to be the 39th straight game Johnstone will start while available and healthy. After redshirting in 2012, Johnstone started all 26 games in 2012 and 2013, the last the Alamo Bowl game in which he was initially injured. On Saturday, Johnstone will be back playing on that same Alamodome turf.
“It makes for a good story, I guess,” he said. “It’s the biggest point of adversity I’ve had to experience as a football player so far; it all started out here. So I guess kind of closing the deal and finishing it out is a good story.”
Johnstone put himself in position to enjoy this final chapter of his story by keeping his head up through a difficult 2014. He had hoped to return in time to play last season, only to re-injure the knee in preseason camp. Somehow, he maintained the gregarious positivity that made him a hit on the local TV segment “Moose Time,” while watching his teammates enjoy a run to the title game.
“For him not to be a part of that, going through two ACL tears, is something that, I don’t know if I could have gone through that and kept a positive attitude,” junior guard Cameron Hunt said. “I don’t know how he did it.”
Johnstone hosted Hunt’s recruiting visit three years ago, and has been “kind of my big brother” since, Hunt said. Even while injured, Johnstone retained that level of impact on his fellow linemen.
“He was always there supporting us, being a leader on the sideline,” Hunt said. “I think that helped this year, that he came into that role last year and we all trusted him.”
In 2015, Oregon had to adjust to the loss of Hroniss Grasu, Jake Fisher and Hamani Stevens. But with Johnstone having blossomed as a leader in 2014, he was able to help the remade offensive line jell quickly, thanks as well to senior transfer Matt Hegarty.
“I can’t say enough about him,” Greatwood said.
Over the first few games of this season, Johnstone was harshly critical of his own play. It took half a season to re-hone the techniques that made him a second-team all-conference player as a sophomore in 2013.
“It took time to get back where I was before,” Johnstone said. “I’m always going to be hard on myself; there’s always things to improve on. I think it took until six, seven games in to be pleased with my own film. To say, ‘I did pretty well this game — but here’s what I still need to fix.’”
On Saturday, Johnstone can finish his career with an exclamation point, by helping contain the athletic TCU defensive ends.
“Their defensive ends get upfield faster than a lot of the guys we’ve seen this year,” Johnstone said. “They move around as far as their defensive line goes — a lot of slanting, a lot of twisting. We have to keep our eyes outside, for the boundary blitzes, things like that.”
And while Johnstone doesn’t give much credence to the narrative surrounding his return to the Alamodome, he acknowledged this week that he’ll likely experience some “melancholy” during his final game in an Oregon uniform.
“However the game turns out, it being our last game (there will be) a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of excitement,” Johnstone said. “It was a long road playing at Oregon; this is my fifth year. The bond you create on this team, with this culture, I mean, it’s something you’ll never have again. That’s definitely one thing I’ll be missing after this game, and one thing that’s going to probably hit me the hardest.”
