Notre Dame freshman suffers injury, out for an extended period
On Monday, the Notre Dame football communications staff announced that freshman safety Tae Johnson suffered a foot injury (left fifth metatarsal) that required surgery performed by Dr. Thomas Bemenderfer. He is expected to return this season.
The foot injury Notre Dame released Thursday is Johnson’s second within the last 17 months.
“We expect him back at some point during the season,” coach Marcus Freeman said Thursday. “He’s a guy that got injured probably at the end of camp.”
Johnson’s first foot injury occurred during a training session in March 2023 at former NFL wide receiver Brandon Marshall’s House of Athlete facility. It delayed the start of his high school senior season.
Then, a shoulder injury ultimately ended Johnson’s final preps campaign. However, he enrolled at Notre Dame in June without any apparent limitations and hit the ground running. On Aug. 17, defensive coordinator Al Golden complimented Johnson’s development during fall camp.
“Tae has really made a lot of progress,” Golden told reporters 12 days ago. “Tae cares about it. He really wants to do better, and he’s trying to improve. It’s just a challenge back there when you’re young.”
During his high school career at Fort Wayne (Ind.) North Side, Johnson was more of a full-time wide receiver and recruited that way. In his first three years, he had over 1,900 career receiving yards and 26 touchdowns. Defensively, Johnson finished with about 60 tackles and 1 interception.
Tae Johnson signed with Notre Dame with immense potential as a safety
Despite mostly playing offense in high school, his trainer, former Indiana wide receiver Dre Muhammad, felt strongly enough about Johnson’s abilities to deem him as ” the best safety in the country.”
“Tae’s range from hash to hash is probably as good as anybody you will see in the country,” Muhammad said. “He has length, range and the ability to learn quickly. Outside of him getting faster and stronger, those are the things that will make him the safety he’s supposed to be.”
According to the On3 Industry Ranking — a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four primary recruiting media services — Johnson was a four-star prospect who ranked as the No. 215 overall player, No. 8 “athlete” nationally and No. 6 prospect in Indiana in the 2024 recruiting cycle.
Johnson said Notre Dame was the only school that recruited him as a safety. He verbally committed to the Fighting Irish on June 24, 2023, over 17 other power conference scholarship offers, including Purdue, Tennessee, Penn State, Michigan State and Auburn. He also expressed interest in Ohio State during his recruitment.
