2016 Recruiting: Ron Johnson Comment Count

Brian

Previously: Last year's profiles. S Josh Metellus, S Khaleke Hudson, CB David Long, CB Lavert Hill, LB Elysee Mbem-Bosse, LB Devin Bush Jr., LB Devin Gil, LB Josh Uche.

       
Camden, NJ – 6'4", 230
       

635708504265798044-RJ

Scout 3*, NR overall
#52 DE
Rivals 4*, NR overall
#20 DE, #8 NJ
ESPN 4*, #109 overall
#15 DE, #4 NJ
24/7 4*, #239 overall
#18 WDE, #6 NJ
Other Suitors PSU, UO, ND, OSU, Bama
YMRMFSPA Frank Clark
Previously On MGoBlog Hello post from Ace.
Notes Twitter. Son of former Badger Ronald Johnson. Teammate of Brad Hawkins.

Film

Senior:

Our grueling Signing Day podcast finished with a Lightning Round(!). 247's Steve Lorenz was the victim. Our last question was "recruit Michigan fans have forgotten about." Lorenz said "Ron Johnson… that's an easy one." And so it is. After an early commit and little subsequent drama—a Kentucky visit is not much drama—Johnson is just another mid-four-star Jersey guy to a lot of folks, including your author. But he's an excellent prospect—albeit a divisive one.

I am similarly divided. Many of the things that are written about him are very encouraging, but the Semper Fi game at which Khaleke Hudson became a fave-rave also featured Johnson. He mostly got hung up on blocking. Impactful he was not. While you never want to read too much into a half-game of snaps in an All-Star situation, it is data. That data wasn't great.

Oddly, the rest of the data from that game was. 247 paid it the most attention, and was consistently wowed by his performance in practices. On day two they named him the "Alpha Dog":

easily the most dominating player on the second day of practice. The four-star Michigan commitment could not be blocked at the line of scrimmage, firing off the ball and using his raw strength to explode on contact. At 6-foot-4, 230-pounds, Johnson is lean, but on Thursday he showed the upper body strength is already there to throw blockers to the wayside. …. Coaches were raving about his performance on Day two, and rightfully so.

The day before he narrowly missed the same designation because he "displayed three great qualities of a productive pass rusher"—tenacity, violent hands, and flying to the football. The day after he narrowly missed the same designation because he was "tenacious" and had "speed to get to the football that cannot be coached." The practices hold more weight than the actual game when it comes to rankings and 247 bumped him into their top X list afterwards.

Other reports are mixed. One thing everyone seems to agree on is Johnson’s athleticism, which is Grade A.

  • Rivals: “pure edge rusher with great explosiveness off the line of scrimmage.”
  • 247: “physically gifted defensive end with great explosiveness and power.”
  • ESPN: “Demonstrates excellent raw strength … brings some excellent physical tools.”
  • Scout: “Johnson has an excellent motor and also plenty of athleticism.

That’s everyone, then. Despite this there is a big spread in opinion on Johnson running from fringe top 100 guy to generic three star. Most of the disagreement appears to be about how heavily to weight his upside versus where he is right now, or at least where he’s been for much of high high school career.

Despite being the most optimistic service, ESPN offers up a lot of what skeptics are seeing. This is another report where their ranking doesn’t entirely match up with the contents. This time the scouting report is a little lukewarm for a prospect on the fringe of their top 100:

Needs to watch pad level, but displays ability to stay low and has the strength and length to set the edge when he keeps pads down. … Lateral agility is adequate and displays inconsistent recognition skills. … nice upside [as pass rusher] with length and ability to quickly get off the ball. …doesn't have great bend, but displays ability to work tight path. … Can rely on size and strength some and needs to be more consistent with technique.

That sounds more like a four star outside their top 300, but it’s possible his ranking got bumped at some point without an update to the report. Rivals originally had Johnson at the tail end of their top 100 before a big drop just preceding his senior year, one that was based on size concerns:

"…if the offensive tackle can get his hands on Johnson, the New Jersey native has a hard time recovering. Size and strength are a bit of a concern as a defensive end, but his athleticism can't be denied.”

A contemporary evaluation compared Johnson to PSU commit and composite top 50 player Shane Simmons, justifying Rivals drops for both since they are undersized players with little recourse if an opposing OL can match their outside rush.

Meanwhile, the “mixed” comes into play heavily in Scout’s assessment, which directly contradicts ESPN’s in a couple places and itself once:

Johnson has an excellent motor and also plenty of athleticism. He gets up the field in a hurry, but also uses technique, including a nice swim move. He stays low at the snap and can dip his shoulder to get around the edge… He needs to work a bit on his change of direction, which is good for a kid his size.

“Hand quickness,” an item ESPN says he needs to work on, is a strength. Change of direction, which is good, is bad. Despite saying he’s good at things ESPN thinks he’s not good at, Scout ranks him 32 slots lower at DE than the next most skeptical service. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That is literally the only text content from Scout that, you know, scouts Johnson. There are a couple of their horrible talking-heads-standing-outside-in-the-wind recaps elsewhere because someone high up at Scout thinks videos that should absolutely not be videos are the company’s salvation… I am digressing.

Brian Dohn did offer up a highlights-plus-talking item when he committed, praising his ability to pursue—always a backhanded compliment—and saying he needs to do better at disengaging from blockers and is liable to go blow a guy up even if that guy doesn’t have the ball. The latter echoes one of the criticisms ESPN had for him, and is in direct contrast to recently-covered Josh Uche. That’s an important flaw, albeit a fixable one.

His video also has a number of those high school tackles on which the D-I prospect hurls himself wildly at a future accountant. The accountant goes backwards five yards, the recruit flexes, and coaches wince. Johnson’s not exactly refined.

If you’re noticing that a lot of reports say that he’s crazy strong and a lot of reports say he’s too small… yeah. Here’s a canonical one:

While he does not have developed technique, he is incredibly strong and uses his hands violently. At Michigan, expect Johnson to be coached up for a year or two while he adds size to his frame, which appears like it could easily hold 30 or 40 more pounds.

Those would seem to be traits in direct opposition to each other. An attempt to interpret this: “crazy strong” reports are more about Johnson impacting OL violently with that explosion and knocking them off balance. “Needs to get bigger” reports are more about what happens when the OL can cope and gets locked on. Clint Brewster has some more detail:

…gets off blocks with an aggressive swim move and has the strength to shrug them off as well. He has the core-strength and ability to beat offensive tackles inside to make plays in the running game or the quickness and speed to beat them outside. He works hard to stand his ground against the run and has power in his upper body to punch and dispatch blockers.

That eval is directly contradicted by various other reports, FWIW. I’m just trying to resolve the distinction.

A lot of WDE types will garner similar evaluations. Johnson is a common prospect: athletic LB/DE type who’s going to eat like The Rock for a couple years and end up a much different player. Sometimes that’s an eh guy who loses his quick-twitch and ends up being a backup SDE or something. Sometimes it’s the high school prospect plus 40 pounds of anger. Roll them dice. Johnson is starting with a +1 or +2 modifier to your roll.

Etc.: Dang hard to Google.

Why Frank Clark? Clark was an explosive, high-impact WDE who needed to add a bunch of weight and technique before he became effective. Early in his career Clark was horrible at diagnosing zone read and would often vacate his rush lane; late he was a strapping 270-pound athletic player whose production outstripped his stats.

Johnson isn’t as far away from playing weight as Clark—who was 210 coming out of high school—and has correspondingly higher rankings. He’s also got a couple inches on Clark, so hitting that 270 or even 280 that Clark did is within reach. The upsides are similar.

Johnson is also similar to Lawrence Marshall as a recruit, but we haven’t seen how Marshall’s game translates to college. That could also be Johnson’s fate. He’s not a slam dunk by any means.

Guru Reliability: Moderate. Healthy, All Star appearance, but big split. More or less agree on what kind of player Johnson is and radically disagree on how valuable that is.

Variance: High. Low technique, high athleticism  DE with a big ceiling and a long way to go.

Ceiling: High. See Clark, Frank.

General Excitement Level: Moderate-plus. Boom or bust guy. Semper Fi performance leans towards “boom.”

Projection: Redshirt should be coming with Michigan’s depth on the DL and Johnson’s rawness. He will probably have to cool his heels a bit longer if Winovich sticks and Marshall comes through. This is completely fine. Unless he is tracking way ahead of schedule 2018 is the first you’ll hear from him.

In 2018 and beyond he could be anything from a ghost to Clark 2.0. Your guess will suffice.

Comments

Hardware Sushi

May 19th, 2016 at 3:14 PM ^

I remember back in January getting pretty excited about Johnson after hearing his Semper Fi performance.



Frank Clark minus off field stuff would be a great outcome.

Lanknows

May 19th, 2016 at 3:31 PM ^

Doesn't apply at Johnson's presumed position (WDE) unless you shift Charlton from his natural spot at SDE.  Johnson has a shot at some limited playing time right away, much like Clark did.

WolvinLA2

May 19th, 2016 at 5:22 PM ^

Disagree. He's got Winovich, Lawrence Marshall, Reuben Jones, maybe Shelton Johnson and likely Carlo Kemp (only because he enrolled early) ahead of him to start. Even if he jumps 2 of those guys and Taco never plays WDE, he's still 4th string. This has RS written all over it.

Lanknows

May 19th, 2016 at 6:08 PM ^

The position is wide open.  Winovich is the favorite for earning a lot of spring praise but nobody else has done anything that would prohibit a talented freshman from surging ahead of them.

Nobody can seriously argue they have an experience advantage without playing meaningful snaps. Winovich is changing positions (again), Marshall's been in and out of the dog house, Jones they tried to move to LB, and Johnson we haven't heard a peep about. The assumption that somebody is ahead based on an EE is obviously dubious and a red-shirt season also dubious.

When Ojemudia went down last year Michigan didn't use ANY of these guys, playing undersized OLBs instead.  At a position where freshman can traditionally contribute, this is telling.  

Adding to all the uncertainty is the fact that we have a new DC who is going to use the positon differently.

If you want to pencil Johnson in last, you can - but the depth chart at WDE is speculative, uncertain, unknown, tenuous, etc.

 

WolvinLA2

May 19th, 2016 at 10:07 PM ^

You're right on a lot of that, and if Johnson was one of those "college ready" recruits from either a size or a technique standpoint (he's neither) then I would think he has a shot. I also disagree with you that DE is a position where freshmen traditional contribute.

Also, when Ojemudia went down last fall, we went to a senior who had essentially been splitting snaps with him before the injury, so we didn't need to go to these guys. Lawrence Marshall got a lot of snaps in the bowl, however.

If you think he's got a good chance to play, fine. But there are still a lot of guys who will be ahead of him come the fall. Yes, I'm guessing on that a bit, but it's a very safe, educated guess.

Lanknows

May 20th, 2016 at 1:41 PM ^

I wasn't necessarily arguing that Johnson is a lock to play. I think Kemp may be more likely.  All I'm saying is the opportunity is there. The depth argument doesn't hold much water IMO. I'd argue there's potentially a significant need for a freshman to step up.  If Winovich or Marshall (or someone else) make a leap the need would be obviated, but you still want a viable rotation and pass-rush specialist to use situationally.

RJS wasn't anywhere near splitting snaps with Ojemudia. Durkin was treating it more like an LB spot (low rotation) than a DL spot (heavy rotation). Marshall got snaps in a blowout but was nonexistent the rest of the year.

Clark, Ojemudia, Charlton, Roh all played as freshman.  It's pretty typical for rush ends to play because (like CB and RB) it's a position where athleticism is more important than technique or strength or reading plays.  Those do matter at WDE, so there's not NO reason to red-shirt players but, in balance, impact players play.

If Johnson is as talented as his offer list indicates and if he's closer to the high end of those scouting reports in terms of physical ability than the low end -- he's got an excellent chance of playing.

Mr Miggle

May 19th, 2016 at 6:24 PM ^

DL. We have six players who I think would have been sure fire starters many years. None of them are natural WDEs. I expect to see some early experiments including jumbo packages.

bronxblue

May 19th, 2016 at 4:18 PM ^

I was excited when they signed him because the team has been in need for impact edge rushers for years it seems and Johnson fits that bill. Then one thing I'm not worried about with this staff is coaching up a guy on technique. If Johnson has the tools, he'll be hard to stop.

Lanknows

May 20th, 2016 at 1:44 PM ^

In coaching up DEs?  Mattison's got a great track record with interior linemen but rush ends?  Brown seems to be an expert with LBs.

Clark was very talented but didn't exactly produce like a 2nd round draft pick while at Michigan.  I don't know enough about BC to have an opinion on Brown's talent development.

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I Want To Believe

May 24th, 2016 at 2:34 AM ^

Ron's frame is easily one that can add 30lbs of muscle without losing any speed. The way Ron uses his hands, coupled with great coaching, and a year or two of our weight program, could create an absolute monster on the defensive line.




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