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Pure Ballers: Roschon Johnson and the best complete football players in Longhorn history

by:RT Young•about 9 hours
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Roschon Johnson (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

Happy 24th birthday to Texas great Roschon Johnson—one of the best “pure ballers” to ever play for the Longhorns.

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What I mean by a “pure baller” is that RoJo fits the following criteria…

He played with incredible effort.
The “Wild Roschon” victory against Kansas State on Black Friday in 2021 might be an all-time “put the team on my back” game. Johnson, mostly from the quarterback position, led Texas to a must-win moral victory with 31 carries for 179 yards. That performance—along with his signature power in the form of stiff arms, hurdles, and busted tackles—personifies his effort and sheer will, which often carried Texas in an era when they needed to be picked up.

He could have starred at (almost) any position.
Roschon was a four-star quarterback recruit from Port Neches-Groves. I still remember hearing about his high school game against Crosby, where he scored 10 touchdowns. If not for severe roster mismanagement by Tom Herman, Johnson would’ve never had to move to running back. In my ode to RoJo from 2022, I wrote: “He was an ideal fit for Herman’s power spread offense, and you can envision an alternate history where Johnson takes the mantle from Sam Ehlinger and similarly punishes defenders from the quarterback position.”

But as our own Ian Boyd has written, Johnson could have been an incredible defender, too. He would have fit the mold as a Big 12 linebacker or even a thumping safety, with a preternatural ability to read defenses and make plays.

He could have excelled in any era of Longhorn football.
Try to find a time in Texas’ storied history when Johnson wouldn’t have been excellent in multiple roles on offense or defense. You can’t. That might be the biggest differentiating factor among “pure ballers.” There are incredible athletes from recent years who might have run around defenses in Darrell Royal’s era but wouldn’t have stood up to the physicality. There’s never a time when Johnson wouldn’t have punished defenses and put the Longhorns on his back when it was required.

I thought of a few more of the best “pure ballers” based on my criteria: Tommy Nobis (who really was a two-way star), Steve McMichael, Nathan Vasher, the Brothers Q (Quentin Jammer and Quandre Diggs), and Henry Melton. Ehlinger and Jordan Whittington are two in recent years who seemingly would have done anything and everything for Texas, if they had been asked to. 

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Who are your nominations for the best-ever “pure baller” Longhorns?

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