Six steps brought Max Johnson and his father to tears. Two years later, he's a starting quarterback again

Brad Johnson fell asleep in his car.

It was the fall of 2024, and this was his new routine. He'd wake up early, get his son to the football facility by 6 a.m., and make him sit in team meetings while he sat in the car, waiting to help his injured son into the car after the meetings ended.

Six or seven weeks earlier, Max Johnson's right femur had snapped in two on a field in Minneapolis. The Johnsons spent nearly two weeks in a hospital. Doctors were not certain the leg could be saved after complications in surgery. Football was the furthest thing on their minds.

Flash forward to the parking lot. There was a knock on the car window. It was Max, waking his father so he could go home, but something was different.

"I can walk," he told his father.

"Well, let me see it," Brad ordered.

Max took six steps. Then the tears flowed. Father and son sat in the parking lot, crying. The football dream was still alive.

Two years later, Johnson is back on his feet at another program, announced Sunday as the starting quarterback for Georgia Southern. The 25-year-old enters what will likely be his final season, his seventh year playing college football. The Eagles are the fourth program to award him the starting job, but he hasn't played a full season since 2021, his second year at LSU.

"Now he's fully healthy. He's at a place where they love him, and he loves them," Brad Johnson told CBS Sports. "I've never heard one complain from him about anything. He was just excited about going to meetings and the grind. It's a place where they believe in him, and he believes in them.

"And that's -- I can't express those words enough."

The long road is littered with amazing stories. The son of a Super Bowl winner, Max received his first scholarship offer 10 years ago from his uncle, Mark Richt, at Georgia. He has played for Ed Orgeron, Jimbo Fisher, Mack Brown and Bill Belichick. Three of those men were fired in a season he played for them.

"I thought he'd be in the NFL three years ago," Brad said.

Johnson's odyssey began at LSU in post-Burrow era

To contextualize that Johnson has been experiencing college football for what feels like forever: He saw action in the covid-shortened 2020 season, going from QB3 to QB1 as Myles Brennan suffered an injury and TJ Finley struggled as LSU limped through the hangover from Joe Burrow's historic 2019 title run. Johnson's first career start was a famous upset of Dan Mullen's No. 6 Florida Gators, who saw their College Football Playoff hopes fly out the window when defensive back Marco Wilson decided to throw an opponent's shoe through the fog. 

The injuries started in 2022 (and the medical redshirts from those injuries are how Johnson still has eligibility). Max transferred from LSU after Orgeron was fired, landing at Texas A&M in 2022, where he replaced Haynes King following King's loss to Appalachian State. Max led the Aggies to wins at No. 13 Miami and against No. 10 Arkansas in back-to-back weeks, but then broke a bone in his throwing hand in a loss to Mississippi State. He lost the starting job in 2023 to Conner Weigman, but was elevated again when Weigman suffered a season-ending injury. Five games later, Johnson suffered a rib injury that ended his season.

He entered the portal again, landing in North Carolina. He won yet another quarterback battle, beating Jacolby Criswell and Conner Harrell, in preseason camp.

Then came the season opener, his first as a Tar Heel. On a nationally televised Thursday night Week 1 showcase, late in the third quarter at Minnesota, blitzing cornerback Justin Walley took Johnson down as he released the ball. Defensive lineman Darnell Jefferies hit him high. When trainers lifted him, his leg came loose beneath him. 

"He was going off that field, and a lot of times you see somebody give a thumbs up and they're OK. He didn't do a thumbs-up," Brad said. "He wasn't OK."

Max underwent five surgeries but returned to the field and played for the Tar Heels a year later, this time under Belichick, who had been hired to replace Brown following the 2024 season. 

His father has been on the other side of that hallway. Brad Johnson's 1997 season with the Vikings ended with a neck injury that led to decreased strength in his forearm and throwing hand. He came back the next year, started two games, suffered an injury, handed the reins to Randall Cunningham and later broke a bone in his thumb. The compressed nerve in his back limited his arm strength at the age of 30. 

His career, however, wasn't over. He required about a year and a half to regain his strength. 

"The same thing for Max," Brad said. "It was a blessing in disguise that I wasn't fully healthy for that year."

Brad would win a Super Bowl five years later with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's a personal story that gives the Johnsons hope that Max may follow the same path after years of pain and disappointment.

Max spent most of the 2025 season on the bench and transferred in January to Georgia Southern for a fresh start. Clay Helton, entering his fifth season in Statesboro, needed a quarterback after JC French IV transferred to Cincinnati as the school's all-time passing leader with 5,882 yards over three seasons.

It's a fresh start for the Eagles, too. They do not return a single starter on offense. In another twist, Johnson beat out Turner Helton, the head coach's son, for the starting job.

Max'd out

How Max Johnson is suiting up for seventh season of college football

Johnson enters the season with 6,355 passing yards and 49 touchdowns against 13 interceptions, but he's played only five games -- two starts -- since the end of the 2023 season. He hasn't started a full season since 2021 at LSU, throwing for a career-best 2,814 yards in 12 starts.

"You know, it's kind of a story about the popcorn kernels," Brad Johnson said. "They all go into the pot, and it's the same kernel, it's the same oil, it's the same heat. But not every kernel gets to pop at the same time."

He is not sure the delay was the worst thing for his son.

"And for him, it's who are you when you don't have football?" Brad said. "He didn't have football. He didn't have anybody believe in him, you know? He grew up as a person, found out what he was without football and now he has someone that believes in him. It's just his time."

The NFL is still the goal. Brad points out that he didn't make his first start in the league until he was 27. He also argues that the things NFL scouts worry about with younger quarterbacks entering the NFL -- experience, emotional maturity and learning a new system --are exactly what his son has proven capable of handling during his seven-year journey through college.

"The only two things you can control are your attitude and effort, and that's where he's at," Brad said.

Georgia Southern opens the season Sept. 5 against Charleston Southern before traveling to Clemson in Week 2.