Montrell Johnson was in a comfortable situation at Louisiana. He was living just a couple of hours away from his hometown of New Orleans. He led the Ragin’ Cajuns with 12 touchdowns in 2021 and ranked second with 784 yards to pick up Sun Belt Freshman of the Year honors.
All he had to do was stay at Louisiana and continue on his ascent toward the NFL. Transferring to a Power Five school would’ve meant starting over and facing the possibility of getting buried on the depth chart behind four- and five-star recruits.
Testing his skills at the Power Five level would’ve been a high risk, high reward decision.
But, of course, that’s exactly what Johnson decided to do when he followed head coach Billy Napier, running backs coach Jabbar Juluke and a slew of other coaches and staffers to Gainesville in January. He believes that he belongs in the SEC, and he’s betting on himself to prove it at Florida.
“[Being overlooked] was a huge chip on my shoulder,” Johnson said. “I felt like I was very underrecruited in high school. I wanted to come in and show what I can do.
“I’ve just got to put numbers up. Numbers don’t lie. Just put numbers up and keep being humble.”
Ryan Manale, his head coach at De La Salle High School and the current coach at Jesuit High School, said that there was more that went into Johnson’s decision than just the glitz and glamour of the SEC. Johnson prioritized staying close to home as a high school recruit, so much so that he turned down offers from Power Five schools like Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Colorado to stay in state and go to Louisiana.
It took a special relationship with Juluke, a fellow New Orleans native, to pry him away from the Pelican State.
“Montrell’s a kid that’s going to do everything and go above and beyond what you ask when there’s trust there,” Manale said. “I think he trusts his running backs coach that was at UL Lafayette, and I think that’s definitely the big reason why he’s there. I do think it was a very tough decision. If there weren’t the people in place at Florida, he would definitely not be going to Florida.”
From an outside perspective, Johnson might appear to be an underdog at UF. He was ranked as the 60th-best running back in the 2021 class, and he’s now sharing a backfield with former five-star recruits Lorenzo Lingard and Demarkcus Bowman, as well as former four-star prospect Nay’Quan Wright. Top-200 recruit Trevor Etienne will arrive over the summer.
Manale doesn’t view Johnson that way, though. He coached him throughout his high school career and saw him steadily improve. Johnson wasn’t very big on the whole camp circuit, and Manale believes that caused him to be overlooked a bit by the experts.
One game in particular stands out to Manale when he reflects on Johnson’s career. Johnson played sparingly as a freshman in high school, and he began his sophomore year as a backup. Midway through the season, the starting running back got injured and had to miss a game against Riverside, who Manale considered to be one of the top programs in the state at the time.
Johnson made his first career start and broke the school record for rushing yards in a game, according to Manale.
“We kind of knew that he was what we’d been seeing in practice and what we thought he could be,” Manale said. “He blew up in that game and steadily got better.
“He’s a special individual. He has that trait that not many of them have. I call it a triple threat where he can not just run the ball as a running back. He’s very good at catching the ball out of the backfield or even lining up at receiver if needed, and he’s not scared of getting his nose in there and blocking.”
Johnson’s mission to prove that he belongs in the SEC got off to a good start this spring. He led all rushers in the Orange and Blue Game with 15 carries for 62 yards and a touchdown. He also had a couple of runs where he powered through contact to pick up some extra yards.
“Montrell’s extremely bright, picks things up quickly,” Napier said. “He certainly was a very productive back for us last year. I think he rushed for 800 or 900 yards and was the conference player of the year. He belongs out there. I think he’s 5-11½ and weighs 217 pounds. He hit 21.5 miles per hour last year in a game on his GPS. He’s got a big lower half. He’s got contact balance. He can protect. He can catch.
“Montrell is what the doctor ordered. He’s certainly going to provide depth and production for our team.”
Johnson is known for his powerful, downhill running style. He’s not going to dance around in the backfield and try to juke his way to a big gain very often. He’s going to run right at defenders and try to plow through them. That approach should nicely complement Lingard and Bowman’s shiftier running styles this fall.
“When I first got here, everything really felt the same,” Johnson said. “Football is football to me. I felt comfortable when I first got out here. Once I got that confidence, I felt good.”
Juluke is excited for what Johnson’s future might hold, but he was quick to point out that this was the first spring camp that Johnson ever went through in college. He’s not close to being a finished product.
“It’s a little different than being in the fall, and it’s a different level of competition as well,” Juluke said. “He’s working extremely hard. I’m proud of him.
“I’m anxious to see how much he’s going to continue to grow because he has a long way to go now. He is only 18 years old, so I’m still working with him [on] being more mature. I’ve been working with him off the field and make sure that he’s doing all the little things – eating right, sleeping right, drinking enough water. So, those are the things that he needs to be working on. He has some talent. He’s a talented football player. He wouldn’t be here [if he wasn’t], but we want to make sure he’s continuing to grow daily.”
Though he’s only a sophomore and has yet to play in an SEC game, Johnson is being looked to as a leader given his familiarity with the offensive scheme and Juluke’s coaching points.
“I help all those guys out trying to learn the playbook,” he said. “It’s a new playbook for them. I try to help all them out, learn it to the best of their ability. I just try to help those guys try to learn it and get on the field as fast as possible.”
Manale said that Johnson’s leadership will likely come more through his actions than through his words, as he’s a pretty reserved and quiet person.
“He’s not a man of many words, but he’s very accountable,” he said. “He’s an accountable young man, high character. He tries his best to lead by example. He’s not going to lead by hollering and yelling and screaming. He’s going to do it by example. I always kind of look at him as a humble and hungry young man. He’s humble in life and hungry to keep competing to be the best.”
That same competitive hunger is what led Johnson to leave a stable set of circumstances at Louisiana for the great unknown that is Florida. Johnson made quite the gamble, but Manale believes that he has what it takes to make the move work.
“He’s used to always elevating his team,” Manale said. “He’s used to always playing in the big game. He’s used to always earning everything. I think the big challenge he’s going to have is now he’s going to be at the highest level in the SEC, and there’s going to be tons of talent, more speed than he’s used to, and I think that’s where he trusts himself and the coaching staff that they’re going to keep developing him and put him in the right spots.
“I haven’t seen a challenge that he hasn’t met yet.”