Georgia 2025 prospect James Johnson says he hopes to play both ways in college and that he was "happy" to earn an offer from Ohio State safeties coach Matt Guerrieri.
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2025 GEORGIA PROSPECT JAMES JOHNSON WANTS TO PLAY BOTH WAYS IN COLLEGE, SAYS HE WAS “HAPPY” TO GET AN OHIO STATE OFFER
When Ohio State safeties coach Matt Guerrieri was hired on Jan. 10, less than a week later, he was out on the recruiting trail.
One of the first prospects he visited was Georgia 2025 safety James Johnson, who was the first player Guerrieri extended an offer to in his OSU tenure when he stopped by Douglas County High School (Douglasville, Georgia) on Jan. 16.
“He said I was his first stop on the road and the very first person he came to see,” Johnson told
Eleven Warriors of Guerrieri. “He said he was very interested in me and told me about the campus and everything. It meant a lot that (I was the first prospect he offered). I was the very first person, it could have been anyone else, but instead, it was me.”
Johnson doesn’t hold a 247Sports composite ranking as of yet, but he has collected more than 30 Division I offers, including Boston College, Cincinnati, Duke, Florida State, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville, Liberty, LSU, Memphis, Mississippi State, Miami, Missouri, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Texas, Tennessee, USC, UCF, Washington and West Virginia. He said the offer from Ohio State definitely stood out to him, though.
“It was big,” Johnson said of his offer. “I’ve been watching Ohio State ever since I was little. I love their colors and I love the school. I have some family that are big fans so I was really happy to get the offer.”
The 6-foot, 175-pound Johnson isn’t your cut-and-dry recruit, though. Johnson is a two-way player for Douglas County and has several offers to play wide receiver. When Guerrieri stopped in to offer Johnson, he asked his positional preference. Johnson didn’t want to limit himself.
“He asked me which position I wanted to play. I told him I want to go both ways,” Johnson said.
A college athlete being a successful two-way player is very rare in the modern era. But it’s also not completely unheard of, as evidenced by Colorado’s Travis Hunter playing both cornerback and wide receiver last season. Ohio State, whose most recent consistent two-way player was Chris Gamble back in the early 2000s, isn’t ruling out Johnson playing both sides for now.
“He told me that I could do that,” Johnson said.
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