Texas Football: 4-Star RB LJ Johnson has UGA, A&M ahead of Longhorns

One prospect of the 2021 Texas football recruiting class that appears to be fading away from the Longhorns is 4-Star Cy-Fair RB L.J. Johnson.

A key storyline to the 2021 Texas football recruiting class will be how they follow-up landing the nation’s top rated 2020 high school running back prospect. Texas signed elite five-star Salpointe Catholic running back Bijan Robinson in their 2020 recruiting class, leaving a shadow of a doubt as to how head coach Tom Herman would handle that position during the 2021 cycle.

Mixed results came on the recruiting trail thus far for the Texas Longhorns football program during the 2021 cycle. Texas has yet to land anything close to a running back commitment in their 2021 recruiting class, as of March 26.

But an offer that the Longhorns sent out to a talented 2021 prospect went to four-star Cy-Fair running back L.J. Johnson, could’ve covered the perfect follow-up to signing Robinson. Johnson is one of the most highly touted running backs to receive a scholarship offer from Texas for this recruiting cycle.

This 5-foot-10 and 205 pound Cypress, TX, native ranks as the nation’s No. 51 2021 high school prospect and the No. 4 running back. He’s the second highest rated running back prospect in Texas behind the elite five-star Garland, TX, native Camar Wheaton.

Landing Wheaton would be of a whole other magnitude for the Longhorns than Johnson, but both have very high ceilings in college. But Texas will likely prioritize Wheaton over Johnson at this point for a number of reasons.

The problem for the Longhorns in pursuit of Johnson is the fact that he seems to be pretty low on them at the moment. According to a 247Sports report, if Johnson had any finalist schools announced right now, Texas would not be on the list.

The overall schools that Johnson mentioned that would be in his top group included the Texas A&M Aggies, Georgia Bulldogs, LSU Tigers, Oklahoma Sooners, and Stanford Cardinal. While Texas is one of the more than three dozen schools to offer Johnson thus far, they didn’t make his top group.

One of his latest visits was an unofficial with Stanford back on March 6. He also had an unofficial visit with the Baylor Bears on March 1, but didn’t mention them among this top group either.

The last time Texas hosted Johnson for a visit was an unofficial back on Jan. 18. His offer from the Longhorns in the first place came back in June 2019. Getting in on him fairly early obviously didn’t do a whole lot to get in his top group.

Other significant schools to have offered Johnson thus far that he didn’t have in his top group includes the Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida Gators, Florida State Seminoles, Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes, Tennessee Volunteers, and USC Trojans. But there’s not predictions in yet for Johnson either on the Rivals FutureCast or the 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions.