Arizona gets commitment from California running back Brandon Johnson

After an extremely successful first weekend of official visits this month, Jedd Fisch and the Arizona Wildcats continued that success into the second weekend of June.

Unlike last week, in which most of the new additions to the class were on the defensive side of the ball, this weekend had some offensive guys pull the trigger. One such player is Southern California-based running back Brandon Johnson.

Johnson, who plays for Highland High School in Palmdale, is quietly a good pickup for Arizona. He has a very nice build with fantastic speed to go along with it. He shows good patience, allowing plays to develop and lanes to open, before exploding forward and opening up his stride. He doesn’t solely rely on his speed either, mixing in some power and toughness. His running style is very fluid so he doesn’t waste any energy or lose any speed.

Johnson chose Arizona over 12 other offers, to include: Colorado State, Fresno State, Harvard, Nevada, Princeton, Washington, Washington State, and Yale. With his offer list, and with his recruitment on the verge of really picking up, RB coach Scottie Graham and Arizona did a fantastic job with getting Johnson campus and shoring up his commitment.

He doesn’t have a composite ranking as of yet, nor has 247Sports ranked him internally. It is kind of surprising but the expectation is that’ll change in the near future.

During his junior season, Johnson racked up 1,580 yards on 169 carries and 22 touchdowns. That is good for 9.3 yards per carry. He also seven catches for 96 yards and a score. For his efforts, Johnson earned All-CIF Division-8 RB MVP honors.

See below for his junior season highlights.

Johnson is the 12th commitment for Arizona in the 2023 recruiting class, the eighth to pledge in June.