Notre Dame’s quest to add more players to the secondary continued on Saturday as Brauntae “Tae” Johnson committed to the program. The 6’3″ 170 pound athlete comes out of North Side High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana about 90 miles southwest of South Bend. He is a receiver in high school and is coming off a junior season with 69 catches for 1,081 yards and 16 touchdowns. Some colleges were recruiting Johnson on offense but Notre Dame has been targeting him to play safety for the Irish.
BREAKING: Four-Star ATH Brauntae Johnson has Committed to Notre Dame!
The 6’3 180 ATH from Fort Wayne, IN chose the Fighting Irish over Tennessee & Purdue
“I wanna leave a legacy and stay home. It means more when you homegrown & bring greatness.”https://t.co/cSCp1884Jh pic.twitter.com/vcss7aPwNr
— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) June 24, 2023
Johnson has also been a very productive basketball player for North Side averaging 19 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 4.9 assists, and 2.9 steals per game through 3 high school seasons.
Recruiting Service Rankings
247Sports Composite — 4 star (.9322), #168 overall, #13 ATH, #3 in IN
On3 Consensus — 4 star (91.96 rating), #164 overall, #5 ATH, #3 in IN
The 247 Composite and On3 Consensus both combine 247, On3, Rivals, and ESPN rankings.
247Sports — 4 star (91 rating), #160 overall, #13 ATH, #3 in IN
On3 — 4 star (90 rating), #283 overall, #12 ATH, #5 in IN
Rivals — 4 star (5.9 rating), #58 overall, #5 ATH, #3 in IN
ESPN — 4 star (81 rating), #274 overall, #31 ATH, #3 in IN
Irish Sports Daily — 4 star (91 rating)
Obviously, we’ve never questioned Rivals in the past and they are spot on with this scouting report.
Cohort
Johnson was offered by Notre Dame just over a year ago on June 5, 2022. As a local product he’s camped and visited South Bend numerous times and was vocal about his love for Notre Dame during the recruiting process. In addition to the Irish, Johnson was offered by Tennessee, Purdue, Michigan State, Penn State, Auburn, Colorado, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Louisville, Kansas, Iowa State, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Washington among the Power 5 conferences.
Highlights
Johnson is a safety prospect with no safety experience. That’s both fascinating and a little scary! As a receiver, he is a really dynamite athlete. For a taller wideout his burst is fantastic and he’s out of his stance and up to full speed very quickly. There’s a lot of everything to like to his game. I’m probably most impressed with his agility with the ball in his hands. This isn’t some lanky receiver making catches over little high school defenders only. In the open field, Johnson has superb cutting ability, jukes hard, and can find open space easily.
On the surface, I don’t see the urge to have Johnson play safety (other than its a major need for Notre Dame). His frame reminds me of Kyle Hamilton but the current Baltimore Ravens All-Rookie came to Notre Dame a very lean but cut 190 pounds and left after 3 years at an impressive 220 pounds. Johnson looks like he’ll automatically need a full year to 18 months in the Irish strength program to get up to a playable safety weight.
Impact
The thinking here probably goes something like this: Johnson’s floor is way, way higher at receiver but Notre Dame must be thinking his ceiling is higher at safety and his lack of experience at the position and basketball background aren’t going to deter them from getting him to that level.
With his athleticism, you can envision a Kyle Hamilton-type of defender. However, a lot more patience will be needed to get Johnson set along that track. It seems like most Irish fans are aware but safety remains a really big need for 2024 and beyond nonetheless.
Welcome to the Irish family, Brauntae!
Kudos to any recruit that buckles down in the classroom to get into ND, as it seems Johnson has. I think that bodes well for him and ND football.
Hadn’t thought of this before, but how does the Athlete designation get placed? Is it decided by the player or scouts? Because of flexibility in position or the one he’s in isn’t what they project him in?
I gave him credit for agreeing to move to a position he isn’t as familiar with and maybe has a little less sizzle.
It’s usually either:
1) Kid is being recruited at different positions by different schools
2) Kid is not currently playing the position he’s expected to play in college
It’s not that doesn’t have any experience playing safety, but he has played it way less than WR.
There’s a bit of a difference there. I’ve seen a few safety highlights and at ND coaches have some game film to evaluate because of it.
With ND recently recruiting at Safety trying to overcome the local and family pull as with Devin Moore, Peyton Bowen and Xavier Nwankpo, it’s great to see that work to our advantage with his sentiment:
He attributes much of his commitment to the relationships he has built with the staff, notably O’Leary, Freeman and Chad Bowden.
4-star athlete Tae Johnson commits to Notre Dame Fighting Irish
As a note on ND coaches’ Safety recruiting over the last five classes, the primary recruiter per 247:
– for 2020 signees — Watts – Chip Long and for Henderson – Terry Joseph.
-for 2021 signees Gee and Walters – Terry Joseph
-for 2022 signees Bellemy – Mike Mickens. (For Targets Nwanko and Moore – Freeman)
-for 2023 and 2024 signees – Chris O’Leary
Hillman was released from his LOI because he did not clear admissions – which he could at Michigan. Bowen said NIL was a consideration but secondary to the distance to home.
While comparing a prospect labeled an Athlete and those as a Safety is difficult, Johnson’s Overall ranking on Rivals (58) is behind only five 2024 Safeties’ overall rankings – Bolden, Patterson, Woodyard, Filsaima and Johnson-Rubell.
Welcome, Tae.
Unrelated to recruiting, drew tranquil won the chess.com NFL blitz chess tournament:
Chiefs Drue Tranquill Intercepts BlitzChamps II Victory With Dramatic Queen Sacrifice – https://www.chess.com/news/view/2023-blitz-champs-ii-tranquill-wins #chess
Congrats to the former safety/LB/swell dude for bringing home the win
A victory for another ND player from Fort Wayne. Any news about Jaylon or Tyler?
Jaylon has tons of stuff going on, including seed investments in a bunch of long shot companies, opening a JINYA Ramen restaurant in South Bend and investing in other locations around the states, and becoming a minority owner and model for a sunglass brand.
Last I knew Tyler owned a beach bar in Florida and was taking it easy.
Reviewing the 2023 draft for Safeties, one wonders about any correlation between Recruiting Rankings and the Draft.
Experience matters – of the sixteen Safety draftees in 2023, eleven were true Seniors, three were redshirt Seniors, one was a redshirt Junior and only one was a true JuniorIn 2023, no Safety was drafted until the third round (3), five in the fifth, three in the sixth, five in the seventh. Safeties are not usually drafted highly.Only three of those sixteen were four stars (18.75%), eight were three stars, two were two stars and three did not get a star rating (18.75%) – the same amount as four stars.Since so many were true Seniors, the 2019 247 Safety composite rankings are worth examination. Of the top sixteen – all four stars and including Ajavon @16 – only six were drafted (37.5%) in either ’22 (4) or ’23 (2). In 2022, the three first rounders were Hamilton 1(14), Hill 1(31), and Cine 1(32). Those three were rated in the top six safeties 2019 rankings.Of the ten other top sixteen 2019 Safeties, four are still with the team they signed as redshirt Seniors, three have transferred to other schools, two have medically retired and one signed as an undrafted free agent in 2023. (Ajavon is counted as a transfer, but has graduated and not playing with Rice.)
My conclusion from those two years is that unless you sign a Safety in the top five or six, positional recruiting ranking of the top Safeties does not correlate at least with respect to NFL drafting. Someone would have to look at other recruiting classes to see if it correlates if they are ranked in the top five or six to the draft – or is 2019 ranking is an aberration.