Finding the heart of Oregon's offensive line

On Jackson Powers-Johnson and the meaning behind a moment.

James Johnson wasn’t going to spend much time on a question about his son now being a starter. 

To be fair to him, it was a bit lazy. 

What’s it like watching your son now that he’s out there at the start?

The Johnsons don’t really work that way. See, James has always told Jackson that important moments can happen when you least expect them. 

“It doesn’t really matter to me. You got to be able to perform,” James tells me, “even if you only have one play.” 

But the thing is, Jackson Powers-Johnson is on the field a whole lot these days, and while Bo Nix is the one on the billboard, the 6-foot-3, 320-pound junior is the one keeping the star quarterback out of harm’s way.

After playing in 22 out of 23 games in his first two seasons as a Duck, the Utah native won Oregon’s starting center job out of fall camp. And if you were watching the broadcast of No. 13 Oregon’s win over Texas Tech Saturday, you likely caught a special moment between father and son. During Oregon’s 10-play, 64-yard go-ahead scoring drive in the fourth quarter, cameras caught Jackson looking up and pointing into the stands, then pounding his heart before lining up over the ball. 

It didn’t take long for James’ phone to start blowing up after that one.

“I had about three or four friends send me the video as soon as it happened,” he says. “And they know us, so they all said the same thing, ‘Are you sitting up in the end zone where he was pointing?’”

Yup.