FSU football has its coaching staff filled up now that David Johnson has decided to leave Tennessee for Tallahassee.
FSU football fans have heard Tennessee running backs coach David Johnson would be joining Mike Norvell’s staff for weeks.
Bruce Feldman reported Johnson would be leaving Tennessee for Tallahassee Friday, but another report came out later that Tennessee had countered the FSU offer.
Another report came out later that Johnson was mulling the offers and was waiting to see what he wanted to do.
Saturday he announced he would be leaving Tennessee for the Noles to take the running back coach position and Tennessee fans reacted to the news with class for the most part.
Best of luck to you, Coach! Thank you for giving your all! 🧡
— Gina Lee (@Gina_VFL) January 4, 2020
Hate to see you go. Good luck!
— 🍊Chris °|||||||° GB🍊 (@Volguy1971) January 4, 2020
He appreciated everything so much I left the first offer I got ...
— Logan Taylor (@LoganTaylorVFL) January 4, 2020
Better program? Woof..
— Carolina Vol (@hlpressley) January 4, 2020
😩😩
— ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕖 🤙🏻 (@volfan106) January 4, 2020
Class act. Wish him the best at FSU.
— Ryfi3000 (@ryfi3000) January 4, 2020
This is kinda a depressing loss
— Seth🖤🌊 (@seth_trent13) January 4, 2020
Thoughts
It’s always good to see fans stay classy, but it’s even better when you can genuinely do not want to lose a coach and that clearly is the case here.
Johnson has a great reputation as a recruiter and could be the best recruiter on the FSU staff, and it’s something they’ll need to get FSU football back to prominence.
It’s even better than he’s coached with Mike Norvell before and is familiar with how he likes to do things. The running back coaching position has been known as a spot where coaches places some of their best recruiters. However, Johnson did help improve Tennessee’s run game in his lone year as running back’s coach.
The Noles have two running backs signed for the 2020 class in Lawrence Toafili and transfer Jashaun Corbin. However, they’ll likely need to take another running back as Corbin had a season ending injury last year at Texas A&M.
Tennessee has offered a number of blue chip running backs that chose not to sign during the early signing period. It’ll be interesting to see if FSU begins to pursue any of those players now that Johnson is in the fold.