Earlier this week, outgoing (as in he’s leaving, not as in social butterfly) Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson had the seniors over to his place for some fundamental male bonding.
Steaks and cigars were on the menu. Such a combination also comes with the understanding that chops will be busted.
“We were sitting around out on the back patio and they asked me who was the best player I ever coached,” Johnson recounted. To answer, Johnson would reach back more than 30 years to his days as offensive coordinator at Georgia Southern and a multidimensional quarterback who won two Division 1-AA (now FCS) national titles and ended up in two halls of fame – College Football and Canadian Football.
“I told them probably Tracy Ham,” Johnson said. Great answer.
“And they were killing TaQuon.”
That’s TaQuon Marshall, Paul Johnson’s latest and last quarterback, the fellow most charged with wrapping up the triple option chapter of Tech football history against Minnesota in Wednesday’s Quick Lane Bowl.
The outgoing (as in he’s both leaving and he’s a people person) Marshall could take it. He’s endured far rougher treatment in a career marked by outrageous extremes and come out the other side intact. No, not by any charitable stretch could Marshall be called the best player Johnson has ever coached. But he’s certainly in the running for Most Resilient.
“I think sometimes it’s hard to be in the position I was in this year. Not a lot of guys go through it. I don’t think everybody is made to go through situations like that. But I think I was put in that situation because I would be able to handle it,” Marshall said, supplying as apt a summary of his place on the Tech quarterback continuum as any.
It is almost impossible to track this singular career without getting seasick. On his first career start, at Mercedes-Benz against Tennessee to kick off the 2017 season, Marshall ran wild – for 249 yards and five touchdowns – in a double overtime loss. But, while such a performance seemed a promising omen, that team failed to win enough to meet the modest requirements of a bowl team.
The many moods of the Marshall Era were on stark display this season over one 36-day span.
Oct. 5 – On the road, he runs for 175 yards in a 35-point rout of Louisville.
Oct. 13 – At home, gets banged up in a dispiriting 14-point loss to Duke.
Oct. 25 – Watches good friend Tobias Oliver run the show and run for 215 yards as the Yellow Jackets overwhelm Virginia Tech. Johnson holds him out, citing limited practice time with an “upper body” injury.
Nov. 3 – Plays first three series, is lifted for Oliver and never sees the field again in victory over North Carolina.
Nov. 10 – He’s the model of efficiency in a home victory over Miami, completing three of his four meager passes for 73 yards and a touchdown and rushing for 91 yards and two more touchdowns. Gives Oliver a piggyback ride afterward in celebration. Yellow Jackets become bowl eligible and Marshall regains his hold on the starting job for a few weeks more.
Through it all the most unchanging component was Marshall’s outward attitude, as he reflected nothing but support for his buddy Oliver while remaining fixed on getting back on the field.
“You gotta be tough, but at the same time you got to keep your poise and be who you are at all times. Support the guys out there whether I’m on the field or not,” Marshall said, explaining his outlook. “Just try to stay into it because at the end of the day we all want the same goal and that’s to win.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
When you ask a teammate what memories he’ll preserve of his quarterback, the response deals more with character than any specific game or play.
“His ability to continue to work day after day, no matter what,” receiver Jalen Camp said.
“A team player, a leader for us to look to, seeing how he handled the whole season,” Camp added.
More uphill climbs remain for Marshall, who intends to throw his 5-foot-10, 185-pound frame into the pulp mill at the doorway to the NFL. He’ll keep training, go through drills at Tech’s pro day and hope to get to somebody’s camp doing almost anything but play quarterback. “I’ve been thinking about slot receiver, punt return/kick return, even defensive back. Anything like that,” he says.
As a cushion against such an admittedly long shot quest, he expects to get his degree in business administration in the spring.
More immediate is a lower-tier bowl game on the day after Christmas in Detroit, not exactly a sun-splashed winter destination. Tech believed it got short-sheeted when they handed out bowl invitations.
The Marshall plan is to look at the positives of a Christmas in Detroit. And, yes, he can find them even in that scenario.
“I think we’re going to have a good time,” he said. “I think they have us in a great location, plus you’re going to be with your teammates. All of us try to hang around outside of football anyway. We’ll be doing some things outside of football that will be fun, so we’ll be enjoying it.”
Following one low-profile bowl game in the Rust Belt, Marshall will become a Tech footnote – the last quarterback to run the triple option on the Flats (at least for the foreseeable future). And the last in the line of option quarterbacks for the 61-year-old Johnson, barring a coaching comeback someday.
“I hadn’t thought about all that,” Marshall said. “It will be a cool moment to soak it in, being Coach Johnson’s last game with Georgia Tech, my last game with Georgia Tech. I think everybody will try to stay in the moment and just have fun with it.”
In that spirit of having a little fun, Johnson was asked if he might just go ahead and let a guy who hasn’t completed more than nine passes in a game in his career air it out 45 times in the Quick Lane Bowl.
“Yeah, probably, maybe more than that,” Johnson said, with a wry, no-way, smile. “We’ll be in the shotgun, go no-huddle, hurry-up. Maybe take some tight ends the transfer route for the game, too.”
“I think we’re going to stick with the game plan,” Marshall said.
Having spent a freshman year as an A-back, making one of the great first impressions ever at quarterback, riding more highs and lows than the Dow these last two years, Marshall has not written a dull legacy.
Of his thus-far 88 career completions, he considers Brad Stewart’s diving catch of a 37-yarder late in this season’s overtime defeat of Virginia to be No. 1 on his list.
Of his 456 career rushes, he’ll count the 70-yarder that confirmed victory against Wake Forest in 2017 as his favorite.
But, asked what he’d like a fan to think in 10 or 20 years from now if by chance someone cares to remember him, Marshall doesn’t depend upon any single play or moment. When asked the permanent image he’d like to leave of his brief time running Tech’s offense, he’s expansive and thoughtful on demand:
“A guy that brought a lot energy with his game, a guy that played with a lot of emotion. A great leader. A guy who always had his teammates’ backs, no matter what, whether he was playing or he wasn’t.
“Just someone who was fun to be around and enjoyed playing the game and enjoyed being in front of the fans. Someone who was a people person, who never shied away from people after games or anything like that, who embraced the whole experience, the whole role of being a quarterback at a big school like this.”
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