For freshman wide receiver Tyron Johnson, the game of football came easy to him for most of his life, but the transition from high school football to college was far from simple.
It overwhelmed a 19-year-old Johnson so much, he began to doubt himself, a fellow wideout said.
“I know what it is like to have that doubt in your mind as a freshman,” sophomore wide receiver Malachi Dupre said. “I try to help him make the transition as smoothly as I can.”
After the Tigers 48-20 win against Western Kentucky University on Saturday, the doubt may have subsided.
Johnson looked confident as he reeled in his best catch of the season, a 61-yard touchdown bomb from sophomore quarterback Brandon Harris in the third quarter.
As an agile 6-foot-1, 189-pound receiver, Johnson has all the physical tools. But the mental transition initially limited him to play like the electric receiver he was recruited to be.
“It’s completely different from high school,” said sophomore wide receiver John Diarse prior to the start of the season. “Mom is not here to tell you to go to school anymore. Then he has to come here and learn a playbook as big as the Bible. It’s a lot to take in as a freshman.”
Fortunately for Johnson, he had help figuring out how it all works, dating back to his teenage years in New Orleans.
“[Sophomore running back] Leonard Fournette has mentored me before I even thought about coming to LSU,” Johnson said at LSU Media Day on Aug. 16. “We were [friends] in New Orleans.”
Fournette’s tutoring helped mold Johnson into a viable slot receiver, earning 67 yards this season — most of which came from what could to be Johnson’s breakout play against Western Kentucky.
Johnson is one of the featured freshman playing for LSU this season, so the rest of the core group knows how it felt to be in his shoes.
It’s a growing pain all freshman footballers experience — some taking more time to nurture than others, Dupre said.
“He’s adjusting really well,” Dupre said. “At first, you can’t play as fast as you would want to because you are learning. He’s learning, which is allowing him to play faster, which makes him play better.”
Johnson’s athletic ability and speed is an ingredient to a more-developed passing game for LSU this season.
The Warren Easton Charter High School product leaped to catch the under-thrown ball in the facemask of a Hilltopper cornerback on Saturday, snatching it away as he glided into the endzone to put LSU up 34-13.
Tiger Stadium erupted, a possible sign of things to come for Louisiana’s No. 1 overall prospect in 2014.
“He finally got in the endzone,” junior wide receiver Travin Dural said. “He was extremely happy.”
“He’s a guy who came very highly recruited. He’s raw. He’s getting better. His routes are getting better. He’s catching better.”
With Johnson finally finding his footing, Dupre summed up the surging LSU wide receiving group in a few words.
“We’re going to be hard to beat,” he said.