Another Upland DB hits scene

Upland, Calif., high school of the Inland Empire area of Southern California has been a recruiter's hotspot all spring. While everyone is already well acquainted with four-star and Tennessee bound signal caller Josh Nunes and the highly sought after three-star defensive back Osahon Irabor and safety Davion Fleming, now you can add another player from Upland with a D-I offer.

The newest Upland athlete to garner a d-I offer defensive back/wide receiver Taj Johnson (5-11, 183). He received his first offer last week from the University of Minnesota.

With a lot of the attention landing on Irabor and his recruiting is about to end soon, now Johnson is making noise and is just beginning.

"I feel really honored to get my first offer from a Big-10 school," Johnson said. "It's great news. It was about eight o'clock at night when I opened up the letter from Minnesota offering me a full football scholarship."

"My family was so excited and happy for me," Johnson said. "Coach Tim Brewster expressed to me that he was very excited about the future of Minnesota's football program, a future that he would very much like me to be a part of.

"I have been talking to Defensive Back Coach, Ron Lee for quite some time now about Minnesota's program," Johnson said. "I had an instant liking to Coach Lee. I may plan to visit Minnesota in August or take an official visit there to check out one of their home games."

"I'm very excited to get the ball rolling with my recruitment," Johnson said. "We had a lot of college coaches come by our spring ball this past May. A lot of them have told my coaches that they will be watching me closely my senior year because of how my up close evaluation for them was astonishing and eye opening."

As a junior, Johnson racked up 36 tackles and had one pass deflection as a junior.