Texas Football: 5 former 5-Star recruits to pursue in the portal this year

Tyreke Johnson, CB

One of the newest entrants to the transfer portal around the college football landscape that is worth noting is the former five-star Trinity Christian Academy cornerback and Ohio State Buckeyes 6-foot-1 and 195 pound sophomore Tyreke Johnson. Although he didn’t get all that much playing time over the course of the last two seasons, Johnson is a big name to show up in the portal at this point of the offseason.

This could be a potential gem find for Sark and the Longhorns out of the transfer portal if they can time it right. Johnson is one of the later transfer portal entrants this offseason, meaning this type of thing doesn’t usually happen at a potential position of need for a program like Texas. Texas did already get one portal addition this offseason at cornerback in Dunn.

However, with both Green and Watson II got by way of the portal since last fall, there could be multiple holes to fill in the defensive backfield.

A lot of this onus will fall on a trio of assistant coaches which include defensive backs coach Terry Joseph and co-defensive coordinators Pete Kwiatkowski and Jeff Choate. If that trio, along with Sark, feels it’s right to pursue someone like Johnson, this could be a newer portal target to watch on the Forty Acres.

In bits and pieces of four games played in the last two seasons with Ohio State, Johnson registered eight combined tackles and no pass breakups. Coming out of Trinity Christian during the 2018 recruiting cycle, Johnson ranked as the nation’s No. 21 high school prospect, No. 2 safety, and No. 5 prospect out of Florida (247Sports Composite).