Kenny Johnson – The Concordian

Concordia scored 17 points in final six minutes to complete comeback win

The Concordia Stingers football team were trailing for 56 minutes of their home-opener against the Sherbrooke Vert et Or on Sept. 8 at the Concordia Stadium. A touchdown catch by wide receiver James Tyrrell gave the Stingers a 22-20 win as time expired, and helped improve their record to 1-1.

Stingers win on the last play of the game! Final score 22-20. pic.twitter.com/EmaSYJwuPd

— Matthew Coyte (@MatthewCoyte16) September 8, 2018

Heading into the second half down 9-0, the Stingers’s chances of beating the Vert et Or didn’t look good. They had been held to mostly ineffective plays, and any time they gained some momentum, it was quickly negated by penalties and turnovers.

Stingers quarterback Adam Vance said that the team just kept shooting themselves in the foot during the first half. Head coach Brad Collinson was not impressed with how his team came out in the first part of the game.

“I told them they had to look themselves in the mirror,” said Collinson about his halftime locker room talk with the team. “They had to make a decision coming out to that second half if they wanted to play or not.”

The Stingers needed a last-second field goal to beat the Vert et Or last season. Photo by Mackenzie Lad.

Stingers air attack key in second half

The Stingers came out strong to start the second half. Vance was finally able to get his rhythm going and found chemistry with his receivers. Despite a slow first half, the air attack was deadly for the Stingers. Vance finished the game 20/34 for 441 yards and one touchdown pass. Wide receiver Jarryd Taylor had eight receptions for 258 yards, averaging over 35 yards per catch.

“Our whole offence [was clicking],” Taylor said. “We have the best receiving corps in all of Canada and we showed it today. I went into the locker at half with [one] catch. I’m the type of player who wants the ball in my hands every play.”

Sherbrooke made sure to vary their coverages to throw off the Stingers offence, but Vance was able to adjust and connect with his receivers.

“Second half, we definitely came out with some anger behind us,” Tyrrell said, who finished the game with 78 yards and that game-winning touchdown catch.

Sherbrooke didn’t rack up as many yards in the game, but they made sure to take advantage of any opportunity. Quarterback Joé Hudon finished with 108 passing yards and a touchdown, and running back Gabriel Polan had 55 rushing yards. Sherbrooke’s play-action wreaked havoc for most of the game, and often left the Stingers’s defenders losing sight of the ball.

Despite playing better in the second half, the Stingers still found themselves in trouble. They were only able to score a single touchdown and get one field goal in the red zone all game. The Stingers were frustrated when they were in prime scoring position on the two-yard line late in the fourth quarter, down eight points. Stingers running back Widler Exilus took the handoff from Vance, but contact at the line of scrimmage made him drop the ball. That fumble was recovered by Vert et Or defensive back, Anthony Chagnon, who took it 108 yards to extend the Vert et Or lead to 20-5.

The Stingers seemed out of touch, especially after such a potentially demoralizing play. But a touchdown run and two safeties later, and the score was suddenly 20-16 with less than two minutes left in the game.

This was Brad Collinson’s first win as head coach of the Stingers. Photo by Mackenzie Lad.

The Comeback

With 15 seconds left in the game and the Stingers in their own half, Vance used his arm to find Taylor. It was a 50-yard catch-and-run play that placed the Stingers on Sherbrooke’s 25-yard line.

With six seconds left on the clock, Vance snapped the ball, and Sherbrooke had four defenders deep in the endzone. The quarterback was forced out of the pocket, took a couple of steps forward, and tossed a high ball to the back corner of the endzone towards Tyrrell.

“I knew from the snap that I was going to him,” Vance said. “His vertical is crazy.”

Tyrrell leaped up, showcasing his vertical against two Sherbrooke defenders, and managed to bring the catch down for a touchdown as time expired.

The packed crowd exploded, as both fans and the entire Stingers team rushed onto the field to celebrate.

“I used to jump up and play ‘Jackpot’ when I was little, so it just came down to that,” Tyrrell said. “This is the stuff you dream of. It’s just you and the ball, you don’t hear anything else, you just have to catch it.”

Another angle on James Tyrrell’s game winning touchdown catch. Video thanks to Maddie Saylor. @The_Stingers @VertetOr pic.twitter.com/P4Hy2SddrG

— Matthew Coyte (@MatthewCoyte16) September 9, 2018

Games notes

For Stingers offensive guard Kenny Johnson, this was about as good of a return to the home field as he could have hoped. Johnson missed the last three seasons recovering from a serious knee injury which he suffered in 2015, during his rookie season. After three surgeries, he is finally back on the field as a fifth-year player. This was his first game back at the Concordia Stadium, where he suffered his injury. For him, the win meant a lot. “It’s amazing,” Johnson said. “I came back to a team filled with my brothers. I had my friends come out [to the game], my girlfriend come out. The crowd was with us the whole time.”

The Stingers will take on the McGill Redmen at McGill on Sept. 15.

Main photo by Mackenzie Lad.

Three seasons after tearing his ACL, MCL and meniscus, Kenny Johnson is making his comeback

Kenny Johnson hasn’t played in a U Sports football game for the Concordia Stingers since 2015. Three years and three surgeries later, Johnson is finally healthy and set to return to the field to play in his last year of eligibility.

On Sept. 4, 2015, the offensive guard tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), medial collateral ligament (MCL) and meniscus in his left knee, an injury also known as “the unhappy triad.”

It was the home opener for the Stingers, and they were playing the Sherbrooke Vert et Or. It was Johnson’s second year with Concordia.

Kenny Johnson (#64, in background) injured his left knee in a game against the Sherbrooke Vert et Or in September 2015. Archive photo by Andrej Ivanov.

“Our kicker missed the field goal,” Johnson said. “The receiver for Sherbrooke caught it, so he was running down the field. I went running downfield to make the tackle, and a defender was coming at me. I didn’t see him. He blindsided me, and my knee just twisted and I buckled. I collapsed, slapping the ground […] The athletic trainers asked me to get up, and I couldn’t. It was too painful.”

“I wouldn’t wish this on anybody,” he added.

The Stingers lost that game 37-0.

It took a couple of days before the swelling from the initial injury went down. After getting an MRI scan, team doctors broke the news to Johnson that he had blown out his left knee.

“I was still in denial,” Johnson said. “Right in front of the doctor, I started crying. I straightened myself out, I called my mother—that was the first person I could call. I explained to her what happened. I was crying on the phone with her, saying ‘my football career is done.’”

ACL injuries are common for football players. A study in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine found that 213 players in the National Football League (NFL) had ACL injuries between 2010 and 2013. The same study found that offensive guards, like Johnson, have a significantly higher chance of suffering knee injuries than other positions.

Serge Savoie and Victoria Robinson-Mozejko are two athletic therapy instructors at the PERFORM Centre, a private research facility at Concordia’s Loyola campus. They said the average wait time to receive surgery for torn knee ligaments ranges from a week to a month after the incident, depending on the surgeon. Some surgeons will want to operate right away to reduce the chance of significant muscle loss. Others would rather make sure the athlete is building strength pre-surgery to better prepare for post-surgery rehabilitation.

It took Johnson six months to receive his first surgery. Since he is from Texas, Johnson said he had trouble working through the bureaucracy to get the surgery, which is why it took so long. Once he underwent his operation in March 2016, Johnson said the results were not encouraging. The swelling never went away. He watched as the team prepared for the next season, while he was unable to properly rehabilitate his knee.

Johnson had a lot of confidence going into that 2015 season, and had set high expectations for himself. Once he got injured, Johnson said he lost that confidence. Even though the rest of the team never made him feel like an outsider, that’s how he felt.

“At one point during the recovery, I was really depressed,” Johnson said. “I felt like I didn’t have anyone to talk to […] Anyone who goes through what I went through should have someone they can go to and ask questions to—somebody they can trust. It’s such a difficult thing to go through; you can’t do it by yourself.”

Savoie said watching the team start the season while still being injured is the most difficult aspect of the mental recovery for athletes.

“That season starts, and they see all their teammates going and winning and losing, and they’re on the sideline,” Savoie said. “They get a taste of what it’s like to get back [on the field].”

“The injury is all mental,” Johnson added. “There’s a physical aspect to it, but the mental part is so draining.”

Three months after his first surgery, Johnson went back under anesthesia so doctors could try to manipulate the area surrounding his knee to deal with the excessive swelling and scar tissue. Again, he came out of the surgery not seeing any progress. Johnson still walked with a bad limp and was unable to get back to training or performing the way he had before his injury. It took another six months of frustrating rehabilitation following his second surgery before imaging technology showed Johnson still had large amounts of scar tissue left in his knee. He went back for a third surgery in December 2016 and immediately felt a difference.

“As soon as I was out of surgery, I was able to walk out of the hospital. It wasn’t a perfect walk, but I was able to walk,” Johnson said. “An hour after the surgery, I got on the [exercise] bike for like 30 minutes. I didn’t go hard, I just took it easy, but I knew right away: ‘Okay, this is the surgery that did its job.’ I gained my confidence right back, just like that.”

The comeback began after that third surgery. It has been a long process for Johnson, and the injury caused him to doubt his future in football. He said he thought about quitting, going back home to Texas, and finishing his studies close to his family. But he said that would be “too easy.” As the preparation and training for the 2018 season continues this summer, Johnson has his confidence back and is eager to finally rejoin the team on the field. As a second-year at the time of his injury, Johnson felt ready to fill a leadership role. Now, he’s just hoping to fill whatever role the team needs.

“A lot of people know I can play the game at a high level; I’ve studied the game for a very long time,” Johnson said. “I just want to come in and be a team player first before I adopt that leadership role. If it comes, I’m going to take it, but for me it’s about what I can do to help the team win.”

Main photo by Kirubel Mehari.