With the release of the updated 2021 Top247 rankings on 247sports.com, there is a new No. 1 running back in Texas!
As of last Wednesday, L.J. Johnson Jr. has moved into the top spot in the state while holding the No. 3 spot nationally and the No. 30 prospect spot overall.
The four-star prospect out of Cy-Fair High School in the Houston area is ranked above out of state competitors like four-star TreVeyon Henderson (Hopewell High School, Virginia) and Donovan Edwards (Bloomfield High School, Michigan).
The 5-foot-10, 204-pound star has 30 schools nationwide that are vying for his attention. Big name programs like Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Ohio State, Stanford and more are looking to sign Johnson. Johnson plans to take an unofficial visit to Stanford in March after taking an unofficial visit to Texas A&M earlier this month. Johnson also visited Texas in January. The most recent offer rolled in Monday from Michigan State:
As the son of a former LSU defensive end, Johnson comes form a long line of athletes. Johnson has an uncle that played at LSU, one that played at Mississippi Valley State and other uncles who played both basketball and baseball. On his mom’s side, Johnson has plenty of cousins who ran track and played football at LSU.
Johnson exploded onto the scene during his sophomore season in 2018. He ran for 1,139 yards and 20 touchdowns while also bringing in two receptions for 60 yards and one score. Johnson’s junior season saw the stats continue to rise as he ran for 1,951 yards and scored 37 rushing touchdowns. Johnson brought down six passes for 115 yards and one touchdown. He has almost 60 total touchdowns in two seasons and 3,000-yards.
In the 2019 season, Johnson helped lead Cy-Fair to a 11-1 record and a second-round playoff appearance in the Texas Class 6A Division II bracket. Johnson earned a 6A second-team all-state spot from the Texas Associated Press Sports Editors. Johnson also earned a unanimous District 17-6A Overall MVP award while receiving MaxPreps second-team junior all-America honors.
Johnson has plans to try to narrow down his list of colleges in the summer. His father says they hope to discuss it and bring the list down to at least 10 contenders then work on bringing it down to five in the season, but for now Johnson is focusing on his schoolwork as well where he has a 3.7 GPA.
