The Sunday Pulpit: Roschon Johnson is mentally ready to join the Longhorns
Discussion in 'Inside the 40 Acres' started by Anwar Richardson, Jan 13, 2019.
Roschon Johnson may have the most realistic expectations from an incoming freshman quarterback you have heard from in a long time.
Heck, some of his mature responses blew me away.
Sam Ehlinger is firmly established as the Longhorns' starting quarterback. Ehlinger led his team to a 10-win season and an impressive victory against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl. He finished the season with 41 total touchdowns (25 passing, 16 rushing). His 16 rushing touchdowns broke Vince Young’s (2004) and Don Wigginton’s (1971) record for most rushing touchdowns in a season by a Longhorn quarterback. To borrow an NFL term, Ehlinger is the franchise quarterback. It is hard to foresee a scenario where any quarterback beats out a healthy Ehlinger during his final two seasons at Texas.
Johnson believes this is a great situation for him.
He is mentally ready to join the Longhorns.
Do not get me wrong. The incoming freshman plans to arrive in Austin soon and compete for the starting job. Johnson intends to give it his all. He is a competitor. The young man is not going to lay down and give up.
However, Johnson is not in denial about Ehlinger’s status. Johnson will not be deterred if he does not see playing time as a true freshman.
“Unless you’re just put in a bad situation, I feel like any young person going into college, starting right away is cool and all, but I just want to make sure I’m completely ready,†Johnson said. “I feel like me just getting as much experience as I can can’t do anything but help me. If I have to sit behind somebody, I don’t really feel like that’s too big of a deal. I’m okay with it. It’s not something that I feel like would really, really bother me unless it’s just my senior year type of stuff.
“If I’m just coming in, I feel like the best thing to do is be patient.â€
I told you this young man was mature.
It would be very easy for Johnson to step foot on campus and think is the immediate heir to the quarterback throne. Johnson was an All-American quarterback at Port Neches-Groves. He finished as the school’s all-time leading passer with 7,710 yards and was the second all-time leading rusher with 4,900 yards. Johnson posted 85 touchdowns (passing and rushing). He was ranked in the top 10 by Rivals as a dual-threat quarterback. Clearly, Johnson was the man in high school. Typically, it hard for players who been high school stars and praised for years to sit on a college bench and wait for an opportunity. Those players sometimes transfer, quit football, or simply resent their coaches.
Texas signed Casey Thompson and Cameron Rising last year, but both freshmen quarterbacks decided to enter the transfer portal toward the end of this past season. Neither quarterback has expressed to the public why he wants to leave. Sources inside the building have said they were unhappy about not playing this season and do not want to sit behind Ehlinger for two more years.
However, Johnson is far from worried about Thompson and Rising looking elsewhere after one year.
“It doesn’t concern me,†Johnson said. “I’m just focused on myself. I feel like if I would worry about somebody else, I’m not completely focusing on myself. That doesn’t affect me in any type of way.â€
It is easy to see why Texas football coach Tom Herman praised Johnson on signing day.
“Roschon had never made a B in high school until this semester,†Herman said. “He's a tremendous leader. I know his head coach, Brandon Faircloth, very well. We go way back, I mean way back. He told me a story of a game. I believe I'm getting the story right. They won the game, as they did throughout most of Roschon's career, but I think he had missed two out routes or something like that. Coach Faircloth comes in Saturday morning very early to grade the film, I believe it was like 7 in the morning. He looks out on the field, and there was Roschon out there by himself throwing that exact same out route into a net. I think he did it a hundred times. Just kind of speaks to the perfectionist, the competitor that he is.â€
I had to ask Johnson about that B.
Johnson said he had a quiz one day in his English class that caught him off-guard. When a young man is juggling football practice, film review, games, media interviews, family and church, it is easy for something to fall between the cracks. He bombed the quiz and finished with an 85, killing his streak of straight As in high school. Johnson was so fired up talking about that B, I felt his competitive energy through the phone.
“I’m a perfectionist,†Johnson said. “I don’t really like to leave anything undone.â€
Johnson, an early enrollee, is looking forward to Yancy McKnight’s winter conditioning program. He is in shape, but knows a college workout will be more challenging than anything training he has faced. Johnson is ready for that challenge.
Even though Johnson will face the demands of college conditioning, learning a playbook, and adjusting to college life, it appears he will succeed in each category.
Johnson is mentally ready to join the Longhorns.
“For me, I just have to focus on what I can do to get better,†Johnson said. “Just learn as much as I can from the guys who are ahead of me and suck up as much as I can and prepare myself for when my time comes. Eventually, I’m going to get an opportunity to show what I can do. I feel like if I’m prepared enough, I feel like I can do anything coach Herman and coach [Tim] Beck needs me to do. For me, it’s just preparing myself for when my time comes.â€
Extras
Johnson on the Sugar Bowl victory
“I feel like it was a great win for the program. I felt like it showed the culture of the program. A lot of people did not pick Texas to win that game, especially like they did. I feel like it was a great culture win for the program, and we have some momentum going into the offseason.â€
Johnson on areas he can improve
“I can pick out a lot of things in my game that I need to improve. I feel like overall, I just need to understand the game better and just work on the simple things, from footwork to mechanics. Just everything that makes a quarterback efficient. It’s a bunch of stuff I can point out. For me, I can sit there and watch a game and I don’t care if I threw 10 passing touchdowns, I can still critique the things I could do better.â€
Johnson on his relationship with Tom Herman
“I felt like coach Herman was different than all of the other head coaches. Just about how he displayed his character. He’s a serious guy, but he knows how to show some character within himself. That’s something that really stuck out to me the first time I met him. You can laugh and be relaxed around him. That was something he had over other coaches by far. Just his overall character.â€
Johnson on Tim Beck’s recruitment
“He put in the most effort out of all the coaches that recruited me to build a relationship. I thought the conversations we had were genuine and real. He pretty much kept in contact with me the most out of any of the coordinators and quarterback coaches I talked to. We established a pretty good relationship within that process.â€
Johnson on his goals
“I’ve set a lot of goals going into college. Get my degree. Win a Big 12 Championship and then a national championship. I’m just starting. I have to take baby steps.â€
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