Woof: Huskies Land 3-Star Cornerback

Washington doesn’t dip into the state of Oregon all that often but they were able to pick out a good one as Cornerback Elias Johnson out of Jesuit HS in Portland committed to the Huskies.

Johnson has fantastic size for the cornerback spot listed as 6’3 and 175 pounds. He picked Washington after official visits to both Oregon State and Washington State. Right now Johnson is unrated in the 247 Sports Composite but that should change quickly as On3 and Rivals get with the program (247 has an 86 rating for him as the 6th best prospect in the state of Oregon).

On film you can see that Johnson is able to use his length well. He can recover easily on go routes even if the receiver gets an initial step on him because it’s easier for him to get a hand in there to disrupt the catch. On slant routes he can get around receivers’ backs without committing a penalty to break it up. He also uses the extra moment his length grants him to keep his eyes on the backfield which allows him to avoid blocks on running plays or quick outs and make tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Jesuit didn’t use him in press coverage but that’s not a shock for a skinny but long corner.

Washington has added a truckload of corners over the last 6+ months after suffering injury after injury at the position last season. As it currently stands there will be 9 corners on their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year in the program when Johnson arrives as a freshman. Still, some of those players may end up at the Husky spot and a redshirt season will thin out the roster a little bit by the time Johnson is ready to seriously compete for playing time.

Johnson becomes the 9th commit coming out of UW’s big recruiting weekend and the 10th overall. So far he is the only commit from the defensive secondary.

Here are Johnson’s highlights.

Husky fans please welcome Elias to Montlake.