Pitt FB Recruiting
Pitt Junior Day Previews: Antwuan Johnson
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Pitt’s quest to recruit an inside linebacker for the future could add another target this weekend.
Dunbar H.S. (Dayton High School) inside linebacker Antwuan Johnson will attend Pitt’s Junior Day on Saturday. I’d suspect that there’s a good chance he comes home with an offer from Pat Narduzzi and the Pitt Panthers.
A year ago, Johnson (6-foot-1-inch, 230 pounds) thought his recruitment was finished when he was the first commitment in Jim Harbaugh’s Class of 2018. However, in September, Johnson then decided to decommit from the Wolverines and is back on the market.
247 Sports Composite has Johnson as a 3-star recruit (247 rates him as a 4-star recruit and the 10th best inside linebacker in the country) with offers from Michigan, Louisville, Kentucky, Iowa, Indiana and Cincinnati.
On Saturday, Johnson will get a chance to finally visit Pitt and begin to know and try to develop a relationship with the entire Pitt coaching staff.
“Me and Coach Peterson actually met when I was a freshman so we’ve been talking for a long time. He texted me and asked me to come up on the 25th, so I’m looking forward to coming up and visiting,” said Johnson.
“A few of my teammates have told me that the campus and the facilities are nice. The Pitt area is secluded away from the city and I’m a big city kid and that’s a big thing in my recruitment. Aside from that, I really want to get up and meet the entire staff. I haven’t met the staff yet aside from Coach Peterson. They’ve been asking me to come up for two years now and now I finally have a chance to do it.”
When he arrives on Saturday, Johnson has a few things in mind that he’d like to find out from the coaches.
“I’m going to ask questions about how they develop their linebackers and what they’re looking for in their linebackers. I want to talk with the linebackers coach and stay in touch with him. As I said before, that’s going to be big with me, having a relationship with the linebacker coach. I want to get his number and start communicating with him on a daily, weekly basis. That will be a big thing,” said Johnson.
As far as the type of player he is, Johnson sounds like an ideal middle linebacker.
“I have a nose for the ball, I’m going to be in on every play. I study film a lot off the field so a lot of times I know what plays are coming before the snap. One thing I’m still trying to improve on is my speed. There’s some question about it and some people say I’m not that fast. That’s my goal this year is to quiet all the talk about my speed.”
Currently, Pitt has offers out to four other inside linebackers that aren’t committed: David Reese (Fort Pierce, Florida), Nick DeNucci (Sparta, New Jersey), Vinny DePalma (Wayne, New Jersey) and Caleb Deveaux (Waxhaw, North Carolina).
Will Johnson’s name be added to that list?
