68 days until Michigan football: Remembering Ron Johnson
There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 2 opener against East Carolina. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, the upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.
Michigan football has 68 days to go until the 2023 season kicks off, which brings us to a day of memories of the 1968 season. Specifically, running back Ron Johnson.
Johnson played halfback at Michigan from 1966-68 after enrolling in the fall of 1965. It took him until the 1967 to make a big impact, gaining 982 yards on 210 carries, averaging 4.7 yards per carry. In his third game as a starter, he had 270 yards rushing on 26 carries, which was a single-game Big Ten record at the time that it happened. He set a Big Ten record with 42 carries against Northwestern, and wound up as the team’s most valuable player on the 1967 squad.
His senior year was when things were taken to the next level for Johnson and his career at Michigan. Johnson assumed a captains role, making him the first African-American player to achieve the honor. He led the Wolverines to an 8-2 record and the No. 12 ranking in the final AP Poll in head coach Bump Elliott’s final season as head coach. On November 16 against Wisconsin, Johnson set an NCAA record with 347 yards rushing on 31 carries and added five rushing touchdowns, a number that would later be matched by Hassan Haskins in the Ohio State game in 2021.
Johnson won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football trophy, first-team All-American honors, team MVP and sixth in Heisman Trophy voting. He graduated in 1969 with a business degree. He was a first round pick of the Cleveland Browns in 1969 and then spent the 1970-75 seasons with the New York Giants. He was a first-team All-Pro selection in 1970 and made Pro Bowls in 1970 and 1972.
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Johnson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1992. He passed away on Nov. 10, 2018 at the age of 71.
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