ASU football: Meet Plas Johnson

Meet Plas Johnson, a local Arizona State football recruit out of Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona. The same high school that ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham graduated from.

Johnson is a three-star prospect (Rivals) and ranks as the No. 14 best player in Arizona. He has electrifying speed and athleticism, and plays WR and DB for Chaparral.

For the star athlete, the sport of football brought him free college and the opportunity to play for Arizona State football, but football wasn’t Johnson’s first love.

Meet Plas Johnson

Before ever stepping football on the football field Johnson loved playing basketball. During his young years, Johnson loved to run around and play all sorts of sports, but basketball was special.

That is until he realized how good he was at football.

“I like being better at a sport that I can take seriously,” Johnson explained when asked why he chose football over basketball. 

 Johnson’s football background

Once Johnson decided to play football as his primary sport and put effort into his craft, he became a great football player. When the future Division One talent started off playing football in his early days, he mainly played at the safety position. However, the coaches quickly realized how valuable Johnson was in multiple positions.

Johnson’s talent and athleticism made it easy to play him at almost any skill position. Once he got to high school he played mostly receiver due to his great catching ability and his speed.

Despite wanting to play safety again he continued to play receiver until the varsity defensive coordinator tried to convince him to begin playing defense again.

“I played a little defense freshman year and I did pretty decent. And then the defensive coach on varsity pulled me aside and tried to get me to play some defense,” Johnson said. From that moment on, Johnson began to play both sides of the ball.

The recruiting process for Plas Johnson

For many the recruiting process is a crazy time full of travel and visits all around the country. Being from the valley, Johnson had most of his target schools right near him.

Although Johnson may have not traveled and visited that many schools he still had a great recruiting experience.

“It really opened my eyes, for me and I was really excited…..I did not want to go too crazy with it because I have seen other people in their position letting stuff happen,” Johnson explained.

Not only was Johnson excited about finding where the next chapter would be in his life, but he also set boundaries for himself to make sure he was making a wise decision.

“ [I] made sure they [the boundaries] were there, and certain things you know of spill right off,” Johnson said.

The culture being built at ASU

Sun Devil Daily has conducted multiple one-on-one interviews with recruits committed to play for Kenny Dillingham and Arizona State football. One thing that has stood out is that Dillingham wants good people on his team. The young head coach is striving to build a positive culture at ASU, and this is his first full recruiting class to do so.

What Johnson wants you to know about him will tell you the sort of people Dillingham is putting on his team.

“If I could tell anyone one thing and spread it would be about God, I really try to be a person of God and try to be like Jesus on earth,” Johnson said.

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