Why JoJo Johnson Is Ready For Challenge At Notre Dame
JoJo Johnson’s path to becoming a Notre Dame signee was pretty straightforward.
The Irish were keeping an eye on him during his junior season, and after his breakout senior campaign, Notre Dame’s Brian Polian and Mike Mickens offered Johnson. Two days later, Johnson committed to Notre Dame.
Johnson received the offer on Sunday Nov. 22, talked things over with his family Monday night and called Mickens on Tuesday.
“The relationship with the coaches, the winning program, a great school academically and they put players into the draft,” Johnson said about committing to Notre Dame. “Coach Mickens was really excited when I committed.”
Per the Rivals database, Johnson was Merrillville (Ind.) High’s only football player to sign with a Power Five school in the 2021 class. In the previous cycle, offensive lineman Martes Lewis signed with Minnesota. Before Lewis, you have to go all the way back to 2006 to find the last time a prospect from Merrillville signed with a Power Five school.
In that class, Notre Dame signed five-star running back James Aldridge, who rushed for 979 yards and three touchdowns during his career for the Irish.
“When you have a player that is good enough to go play at Notre Dame and fits the bill academically, that is special,” Merrillville head coach Brad Seiss said.
Johnson had 49 receptions for 895 yards and 10 touchdowns, plus 17 tackles and seven pass break ups, during his senior season. He also added 11 rushes for 152 yards and three scores on his way to winning 2020 Post-Tribune Offensive Player Of The Year honors.
“He was huge every single Friday for us,” Seiss added. “We asked a lot of him offensively as we lined him up everywhere and asked him to do a lot of different things for us. Defensively, he was either our boundary corner or if the other team had a good receiver, he would chase them around and play man. We can always count on JoJo to take away their best player and then we’d worry about the other guys from there.
“He can really run. He’s able to catch the ball down the field with hitches and slants and make big plays on offense. He is able to take rocket screens and take them for a score. On defense, we can bring him off the edge against blitzes and he can get to the quarterback. He can spy big-time receivers too, and the [Division I] guys that he covered in three games had five catches for 16 yards.”
Johnson’s other Power Five conference offers came from Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, Purdue and Washington State. Seiss feels that his recruitment would’ve blown up if it weren’t for the NCAA enacting a dead period, which doesn’t allow coaches to go out on the road to evaluate recruits in-person. Additionally, Merrillville’s spring sports were cancelled.
“He was going to run track for us; I think that would have sped up the process for him quite a bit,” Seiss explained. “He always felt that he was better than some of the places that were offering him. No disrespect to those schools, but he thought he was in the upper-echelon of high school talent which made him press as a player sometimes.
“He did have a great senior season though and eventually the offers came in and Notre Dame too. We are an hour away from Notre Dame so when he got that offer, we were pretty confident that was where he would end up. It was good to see him have the patience to work through the process and be patient to get that offer he wanted. Some guys are more worried about their situation rather than the team’s situation, but we never had that problem with JoJo in any way whatsoever.”
Next up for Johnson is preparing for enrolling at Notre Dame in the summer.
“When he gets to college and is with Coach Mickens in the cornerback room, I think you will see him improve even more because he is focusing on just one thing,” Seiss said.
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