QB Cole Johnston is just an ‘average student’ who can do it all and has Karns City football thinking big
Cole Johnston can do a lot of things.
The Karns City senior quarterback/safety could work on his own marketing, though.
“I’m just an average student who plays football on Friday night,” said Johnston, who went 8 for 12 for 136 yards, a touchdown and an interception in a 55-0 win over archrival Moniteau on Friday.
The four-year starting signal caller is selling himself a little short.
“In my opinion, I think he’s the complete package, from having speed, strength, power and then the agility to be able to play multiple positions,” Johnston’s personal coach, Scott Fichter, said.
That’s more like it.
Johnston — who also plays basketball and baseball and runs track — threw for 1,232 yards, 13 touchdowns and nine interceptions as a junior. He added 734 yards and 18 scores with his legs.
“Last year, however many touchdowns I combined for, to help my team win the District 9 championship, I think from now on, it’s, ‘What can I do to top that?’” Johnston said.
Mount Union, Indiana (Pa.), Slippery Rock University and Grove City College have been looking at him as a quarterback, but SRU and GC might consider sticking him elsewhere. Johnston, who runs a 4.47-second 40-yard dash, doesn’t have a preference, as long as he plays at the next level.
After Johnston broke his collarbone making a tackle at safety as a freshman, the Gremlins moved him to the boundary on defense to protect him from having to get into the mix as much. Having gotten faster and stronger — he also weighs 210 pounds, 10 more than he did last year — leading up to this campaign, he told his coaches he wanted to switch back to where he can better read what’s in front of him. The position change yielded an interception in Karns City’s season opener.
Johnston has his sights set on another District 9 crown — “(going) back-to-back would be at the top of that list,” he said — and breaking the program’s quarterback records.
It’s tough to question his dedication.
As a middle schooler, he had to move a weight set from his family’s basement to the garage because his early-morning lifts were waking his older brother up. Still, following basketball games and either before or after track or hoops practice, he works out.
“My dad always tells me to keep the end goal in mind,” Johnston said. “And lifting’s like stepping stones. If you miss one lift, you’re not gonna notice (right away), but you’ll notice down the line.”
Johnston began working with Fichter, who played at North Hills and Grove City College, during the winter of his sophomore year. The two get together on Saturdays during the season to break down his film and the next opponent’s. Throughout the offseason, the coach works on Johnston’s accuracy and identifying reads.
“From what I’ve seen and what I’ve known, from the collegiate level all the way through, whether D-I through D-III, what I’ve seen on tape, what I’ve seen working with him, he can be a D-I player,” Fichter said. “One of the (Mid-American Conference) schools and stuff like that is definitely somewhere I could see him with that athleticism.”
Most of the Gremlins’ passers in recent memory have been more run-first. Being the player who has allowed Karns City to air out it more has people in the community taking notice.
Maybe he’s not as ordinary as he paints himself to be.
“It is cool. Some people will come up to me and start talking to me, and I really don’t know who they are,” Johnston said. “Like, (during) a Veteran’s Day assembly, there’s all these veterans there ... and they say something about the game Friday night and call me by my first name.
“It definitely is (fulfilling) when people who I don’t know are saying, ‘You’re really good.’ Or, ‘This kid’s got it.’ That really puts in perspective the work that I’ve been putting in, that at least somebody’s noticing it.”
