DETROIT — Will Johnson grew up on fields just like this one, a patch of turf on Forest Avenue with the Sweetest Heart of Mary church towering above it.
Johnson, an All-America cornerback who’s already being projected as a top-five pick in next year’s NFL Draft, was back in Detroit last week with more than a dozen of his Michigan teammates to host a youth football camp. As campers gathered around Johnson at midfield for a parting message, everyone was still buzzing about the final play of the day, a camper’s one-handed catch that sent Johnson sprinting up the sideline and left quarterback Alex Orji with his mouth agape.
The huddle briefly resembled a mosh pit before the campers calmed down and took a knee, leaning in to hear Johnson’s voice.
“I’ve got one thing I want you to do tonight,” Johnson said. “Write down your goals. Write down the things that are important to you in your life.”
Johnson started doing that himself when he was in middle school, scrawling his goals in chalk on a desk in his room. One goal was to win a national championship, something Johnson accomplished with his teammates last season. Another was to be a 10-year starter in the NFL. In the space between those goals, Johnson has another year at Michigan and one big question looming in front of him.
What’s the next goal?
“Nothing’s really changed,” Johnson said. “(The NFL) is all just talk for now until I get there. Having the same mindset I had, the mindset of growing, getting better each and every day and being my best self — that’s all I’m really worried about right now.”
Five-star recruits are supposed to be program changers, and that’s what Johnson has been at Michigan. His decision to sign with the Wolverines in the Class of 2022 was both a huge recruiting story and a natural progression for the son of a former Michigan defensive back from Detroit. Johnson came on strong late in his freshman season and became a bona fide star as a sophomore during Michigan’s run to the national championship, pulling down crucial interceptions in the national title game against Washington and Michigan’s victory against Ohio State.
Will Johnson has hosted a youth skills camp in his hometown of Detroit for the past two years. (Austin Meek / The Athletic)
Many of the most recognizable faces from Michigan’s championship team are now in the NFL, including coach Jim Harbaugh, quarterback J.J. McCarthy and running back Blake Corum. Johnson was among the returning players who helped keep the nucleus of the team together in the weeks after Harbaugh’s departure and Sherrone Moore’s promotion to head coach. The Wolverines aren’t heading into 2024 as the Big Ten favorite, but with Johnson leading a star-studded defense, Michigan’s three-year stranglehold on the conference won’t be easily broken.
“There’s a lot of guys that are 6-2, 200 pounds and can run and tackle and all that,” Michigan defensive backs coach LaMar Morgan said. “I think he does that with the best of them. The other stuff that he has that people don’t realize, that’s what separates him. That’s why he’ll be very successful at whatever the hell he chooses to do.”
Johnson has helped to bridge the distance between the college town of Ann Arbor and the city of Detroit, which is experiencing a football renaissance thanks to Michigan’s national championship and the rise of the Detroit Lions. Johnson is both the originator and the most frequent wearer of the Turnover Buffs, a pair of Cartier sunglasses that add Detroit flair to Michigan’s turnover celebrations. His father, Deon Johnson, co-founded the Sound Mind Sound Body youth football organization that sponsors camps and 7-on-7 events for Detroit-area players.
One of those events was the National College Showcase camp that drew hundreds of athletes and coaches to the campus of Wayne State last week. For the past two years, Johnson has had his own youth skills camp in conjunction with the larger camp for high school prospects, recruiting a large contingent of his Michigan teammates to join him. Not so long ago, Johnson was one of those kids himself, following his dad around to camps and tournaments.
“I’ve got pictures with him when he was so young,” Deon Johnson said. “He’d just be sitting on his knees in the middle of the field, just watching the guys. He’s been around it forever.”
The desk with the chalkboard is long gone, but the goals Johnson set as a kid have stayed with him. He wanted to be a high school All-American, which he was. He wanted to win a national championship, which he did. He wanted to play in the NFL, which he will. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler had Johnson at No. 5 in his initial 2025 mock draft, and other early draft projections have him ranked in a similar spot.
With so much ahead and behind him, it would be easy for this year to feel like an intermission, a set of ellipses between two of the highest points of Johnson’s football career. That’s not how he’s approaching it. There’s more for him to accomplish, ways he can get better, skills he hasn’t shown.
Johnson hinted to reporters that he might take a few snaps on offense, which would bring about an obvious parallel with Charles Woodson, Michigan’s most recent Heisman Trophy winner and the only Heisman winner who played primarily on defense. It would take something remarkable for a defensive player to win the Heisman, but if ever there were a year for it, it might be 2024, a season with a larger-than-usual group of defensive stars and a noticeable lack of household names at the offensive skill positions.
Though it makes for enjoyable offseason speculation, draft projections and Heisman talk aren’t occupying much of Johnson’s attention. He’s trying to focus on what’s right in front of him, which for two hours last week was a group of fourth-through-seventh graders who want to be the next Will Johnson.
If that’s the goal, he’d tell them, write it down.
“It’s something I still do to this day,” Johnson said. “It’s something that’s very important, putting that energy out in the world, putting that energy in the atmosphere.”
(Top photo: Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)
