2010sarenevercomingback said:

His freshman year at OU I watched him run & said he was already the best RB right then at any level of football.

Goes in the pantheon of running backs with the greatest pure physical abilities of all-time. Bo Jackson probably leads that class, then dudes like AP, LP, Barry Sanders, Herschel Walker, Eric Dickerson, Chris Johnson, Darren McFadden, Saquon, etc.

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If I remember right, he stood back a couple yards further than most RBs in the backfield in high school because he’d get to the QB too fast and screw up hand offs. He still had to line up further back when he got to OU.

SlumpBuster said:

McFadden?

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Absolute freak of an athlete. Unreal size & speed combination that housed everything when given even the slightest angle. Overall RB skills not on par with the all-time greats, & limited career partially due to injuries.

I am very happy 1st (& 2nd) team AA honors were bestowed on Emmett. I was highly doubtful they'd make room for him. Well deserved.

Boondock_St_Sker said:

which one of them would you want to have running full speed at you and you're the last defender to tackle them...

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I can tell you which one I wouldn’t - LP. He would run me over on the field, and then get in his car and run me over again

SlumpBuster said:

No joke, I was at the OU game where AP came back from injury that week. He wasn't human.

There was a play where Carriker (one of the strongest dudes we had) wrapped him up in the backfield and AP dragged him for 5 yards. Freaking dragged Adam Carriker. WTF

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I don't believe anyone has been close to the freak athlete that Bo Jackson was. Dude was just flat out from a different world.

EJ is a nice back, but he doesn't make my list of top 10 NU backs.

Well deserved…

Irv said:

Kind of wild that no one has mentioned Wan’Dale.

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Hard to rank a solely short yardage between the tackles power back that highly all time. #Scrote

Alum-Ni said:

Link: USA Today

EJ picks up second team AA honors from USA Today

USA Today All-America First Team
QB - Fernando Mendoza, Indiana
RB - Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame
RB - Ahmad Hardy, Missouri
WR - Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State
WR - Makai Lemon, USC
TE - Eli Stowers, Vanderbilt
OT - Spencer Fano, Utah
OT - Carter Smith, Indiana
OG - Emmanuel Pregnon, Oregon
OG - Beau Stephens, Cockeye
C - Logan Jones, Cockeye

DE - Cashius Howell, Texas A&M
DE - David Bailey, Texas Tech
DT - Kayden McDonald, Ohio State
DT - Landon Robinson, Navy
LB - Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech
LB - Arvell Reese, Ohio State
LB - CJ Allen, Georgia
CB - Leonard Moore, Notre Dame
CB - Mansoor Delane, LSU
S - Caleb Downs, Ohio State
S - Louis Moore, Indiana

K - Tate Sandell, Oklahoma
P - Brett Thorson, Georgia
RET - Kaden Wetjen, Cockeye
AP - KC Concepcion, Texas A&M

======================

USA Today All-America Second Team
QB - Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt
RB - Emmett Johnson, Nebraska
RB - Kewan Lacy, Mississippi
WR - Skyler Bell, Connecticut
WR - Malachi Toney, Miami (FL)
TE - Michael Trigg, Baylor
OT - Francis Mauigoa, Miami (FL)
OT - Kayden Proctor, Alabama
OG - Ar'maj Reed-Adams, Texas A&M
OG - Jaeden Roberts, Alabama
C - Jake Slaughter, Florida

DE - Reuben Bain, Miami (FL)
DE - Colin Simmons, Texas
DT - Peter Woods, Clemson
DT - Lee Hunter, Texas Tech
LB - Sonny Styles, Ohio State
LB - Aiden Fisher, Indiana
LB - Anthony Hill, Texas
CB - Hezekiah Masses, California
CB - D'Angelo Ponds, Indiana
S - Bishop Fitzgerald, USC
S - KJ Bolden, Georgia

K - Kansei Matsuzawa, Hawaii
P - Cole Maynard, Western Kentucky
RET - Jadarian Price, Notre Dame
AP - Wayne Knight, James Madison

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Those bastards

Hardy was hyped till he had to play real SEC athletes. Then he padded his stats again vs the two worst teams in the SEC. His AA is just his hype from early in the season.

Emmett Johnson leaves Nebraska with sterling legacy, All-America status​

By Mitch Sherman
Dec. 11, 2025

LINCOLN, Neb. — One month ago, on the heels of a breakthrough performance by Emmett Johnson against UCLA, Nebraska launched a Heisman Trophy push for the junior running back.

Johnson enjoyed the limelight. Fans flocked to see him during an appearance in downtown Lincoln and at the high school championship games inside Memorial Stadium. He traveled home to Minneapolis during the Huskers’ bye week and visited his high school, Academy of Holy Angels. He had stopped in previously, but this trip was different.

“It was like a celebrity came to the school,” Holy Angels coach Jim Gunderson said.

In the final two games of the regular season with Nebraska, Johnson rushed for 320 yards, but the Huskers lost them in ugly fashion against Penn State and Cockeye to cap a 7-5 regular season. As fast as the Heisman campaign began, it was over — but worthwhile, nonetheless.

Johnson ran this season in part so that running backs at Nebraska who follow him can fly. He leaves Nebraska with a sterling legacy.

On Wednesday, Johnson became the first Nebraska player to receive first-team All-America mentions since linebacker Lavonte David in 2011 — and the fourth running back in the past 70 years, matching Mike Rozier (1982 and ’83), Jarvis Redwine (1980) and Jeff Kinney (1971). His final year ranks among the top five in school history by a running back. Stack it alongside Rozier’s 1983 Heisman season, Lawrence Phillips in 1994, Ahman Green in 1997 and Ameer Abdullah in 2013.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule and his staff aim to use Johnson’s success to help bring backs to Lincoln who can finish what he started.

“It’s very much not in vogue anymore not to wait your turn,” Rhule said. “Sometimes, it’s like, ‘I’ll just go here and do this, just go there.’ But guys like Emmett had chances. And they stayed. And he deserves everything that he’s getting.”

Johnson was named the Big Ten running back of the year, a first at Nebraska. Last Friday, he declared for the 2026 NFL Draft, foregoing his final season of eligibility and the Dec. 31 Las Vegas Bowl.

What separated Johnson this year?

• His 1,130 yards in Big Ten play were the most by a Power 4 back in conference play. He stands alone with 1995 Heisman winner Eddie George as the only Big Ten players to total 1,100 rushing yards and 300 receiving yards in one season of league play.

• Johnson led the nation by accounting for 40.8 percent of his team’s total yards.

• He was the fourth FBS player since 2017 to average 120 yards rushing and 30 yards receiving.


• His 1,821 yards from scrimmage and 1,451 rushing ranked second and third, respectively, in the FBS.

In form true to his roots, Johnson proved wrong skeptics who believed he could not handle 20 carries per game in Big Ten play.


He has always had that chip to prove people wrong and be great,” Gunderson said. “This is how he envisioned it going, and he wasn’t going to be denied.”

---

Four years ago, on a Sunday in mid-December, less than a week before the signing period opened, Johnson accepted a Nebraska scholarship offer. Ron Brown extended it.

A month earlier, Scott Frost, the Nebraska coach from 2018 to 2022, fired four offensive assistants. Brown, with 24 years of experience as a Nebraska assistant under three head coaches, was elevated late in that season from offensive analyst to running backs coach. He reviewed tape of Johnson, who scored 42 touchdowns and rushed for 2,500 yards at Holy Angels in 2021.

And Brown wondered why no big school had snatched up Johnson.

“I was perplexed,” Brown said. “Because when I saw Emmett play, I thought, ‘This guy is special.’”

Brown had recruited Abdullah from high school in Alabama to Nebraska in 2011. And Brown coached Abdullah in his back-to-back 1,600-yard seasons as a junior and senior before an NFL career that continues this year in its 11th season. In Johnson, Brown saw some of Abdullah’s vision, change of direction, endurance and ability to recover.

Brown quizzed Gunderson, the Holy Angels coach, about Johnson.

“I probably threw 100 questions at him,” Brown said, “looking for something that might be a little bit off, something that I had missed.”

Nothing.

“Coach Brown could just see the intangibles,” Gunderson said, “the stuff that isn’t measured. He saw the potential and the kind of kid who was going to work and who believed in himself.”

Johnson started six games as a redshirt freshman in 2023. He started five in 2024 and found his rhythm in the Nebraska offense when Dana Holgorsen arrived as coordinator last season. In December 2024, Johnson considered entering the transfer portal.

Holgorsen’s commitment helped get him to stay.

“ I think he just wanted to know that somebody had a plan for him,” Gunderson said.

---

The plan was never to leave Nebraska early. Johnson simply wanted the chance to receive a heavy workload.

He got 32 offensive touches against Cincinnati in the 2025 opener, 24 against Michigan, 23 against Maryland and 29 against Northwestern. In November, after quarterback Dylan Raiola was injured, Johnson stacked three games with 31 opportunities apiece and a 27-touch effort against Penn State.

“This dude really did what he said he was going to do,” Nebraska tight end Luke Lindenmeyer said.

His reliability never came into question.

“I’m so proud of Emmett, man,” senior cornerback Ceyair Wright said. “I think his success is a product of who he is as a person, how he treats people and the work that he puts in.”

His humility and care for others rate as Johnson’s most admirable trait. Johnson said he wanted to share credit with his teammates for the accomplishments of this season. He rushed for 177 yards in the first half against Cockeye and 217 for the game. But he stressed in the aftermath that he felt badly for older teammates who played their final games in Lincoln on Black Friday.

Turns out, he was among them. Johnson takes pride, he said, in building a new reputation for Nebraska running backs — more than a decade after Abdullah departed, three decades after Green and 42 years after Rozier’s Heisman.

“It matters a lot,” Johnson said, “because Nebraska is a special place. I want to be able to have recruits look at this place and know it’s special. It is special. I’m blessed to be the one doing that and helping. It’s bigger than just football.

“There are a lot of great humans here. That’s what I want to help push.”

Alum-Ni said:

Link: USA Today

EJ picks up second team AA honors from USA Today

USA Today All-America First Team
QB - Fernando Mendoza, Indiana
RB - Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame
RB - Ahmad Hardy, Missouri
WR - Jeremiah Smith, Ohio State
WR - Makai Lemon, USC
TE - Eli Stowers, Vanderbilt
OT - Spencer Fano, Utah
OT - Carter Smith, Indiana
OG - Emmanuel Pregnon, Oregon
OG - Beau Stephens, Cockeye
C - Logan Jones, Cockeye

DE - Cashius Howell, Texas A&M
DE - David Bailey, Texas Tech
DT - Kayden McDonald, Ohio State
DT - Landon Robinson, Navy
LB - Jacob Rodriguez, Texas Tech
LB - Arvell Reese, Ohio State
LB - CJ Allen, Georgia
CB - Leonard Moore, Notre Dame
CB - Mansoor Delane, LSU
S - Caleb Downs, Ohio State
S - Louis Moore, Indiana

K - Tate Sandell, Oklahoma
P - Brett Thorson, Georgia
RET - Kaden Wetjen, Cockeye
AP - KC Concepcion, Texas A&M

======================

USA Today All-America Second Team
QB - Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt
RB - Emmett Johnson, Nebraska
RB - Kewan Lacy, Mississippi
WR - Skyler Bell, Connecticut
WR - Malachi Toney, Miami (FL)
TE - Michael Trigg, Baylor
OT - Francis Mauigoa, Miami (FL)
OT - Kayden Proctor, Alabama
OG - Ar'maj Reed-Adams, Texas A&M
OG - Jaeden Roberts, Alabama
C - Jake Slaughter, Florida

DE - Reuben Bain, Miami (FL)
DE - Colin Simmons, Texas
DT - Peter Woods, Clemson
DT - Lee Hunter, Texas Tech
LB - Sonny Styles, Ohio State
LB - Aiden Fisher, Indiana
LB - Anthony Hill, Texas
CB - Hezekiah Masses, California
CB - D'Angelo Ponds, Indiana
S - Bishop Fitzgerald, USC
S - KJ Bolden, Georgia

K - Kansei Matsuzawa, Hawaii
P - Cole Maynard, Western Kentucky
RET - Jadarian Price, Notre Dame
AP - Wayne Knight, James Madison

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did they use AI to pick this list too?