Paris Johnson Jr. has a new mentality in his third preseason camp as an Ohio State football player.
As a freshman during the pandemic-impacted season of 2020, Johnson didn’t know what to expect going into camp and just wanted to get through it. As a sophomore last season, Johnson was still getting comfortable playing a new position after moving from tackle to right guard.
Now, Johnson is back playing the left tackle position at which he became one of the nation’s top players in high school. As he enters his junior year at Ohio State – his second year as a starting offensive lineman for the Buckeyes, and potentially his final season as a Buckeye if he enters the 2023 NFL draft – he’s trying to take full advantage of the opportunity camp brings to get better and have fun playing the game he loves.
“I've just been taking it just one day at a time and I've just been trying to enjoy every day. In fact, this is the first camp I haven’t like dreaded it as a young guy but more so I'm excited for each opportunity I get to improve my craft,” Johnson said Monday. “One thing I tell myself, I just want to enjoy the day, and I don't want to let anything steal my joy. Because I feel like in camp and look on social media and look across the country, everybody, they have the wrong mindset coming into it.”
While Ohio State is still in the early stages of camp, Johnson says he’s had that mindset all offseason. He consistently put in extra work on his own during the spring and summer with a specific focus on polishing his fundamentals, which was something he felt like he needed to do as he makes the move back to tackle.
“I've spent a lot of time just like working on the basics,” Johnson told Eleven Warriors this summer. “I feel like that's what I needed was just a lot of one-on-one time to just work on my craft and not do anything too fancy or whatever, just the basics. And honestly I'm like really happy where I'm at and where I'm headed as far as just working on the little things and the basic fundamentals.”
Johnson says he’s tried to be “deliberate with everything I do” this offseason, whether that’s going through a workout or watching film, and he’s already seeing that pay off on the field.
“I feel like the time I spent in the summer just working on the pass pro, just working on the extra time to myself to take it slower, to getting adjusted to space, to get the technique down, the little fundamentals down has definitely helped me out in camp, has made pass pro feel really, really fun again, like it did in high school,” Johnson said.
Ohio State’s other offensive linemen have seen Johnson’s growth through hard work.
“His work ethic’s amazing,” said left guard Donovan Jackson. “In the summer, we'll finish the lift, and some guys like go back and they just like go to sleep but Paris stays out on the field and gets more extra reps in. And so stuff like that carries over to the field in the long run.”
Johnson has no regrets about playing guard last season. He says he would have played free safety if Ohio State had asked him to. And he says he has been able to apply the lessons he learned from playing inside to moving back to the outside. He cited former Alabama offensive lineman Evan Neal, who played at guard before moving to tackle and was selected with the No. 7 overall pick in this year’s NFL draft, as an example of how a tackle can benefit from experience on the interior.
“I have some situations where I use my right guard technique in pass pro and it just looks really clean,” Johnson said. “He has tape where his feet and close space in pass pro look really good because he spent a season at guard, and it really shows.”
Ohio State center Luke Wypler said Johnson has done a great job of taking the tools that enabled him to excel at guard and applying those to his new role.
“It's been really cool to see how he's been taking the things he learned at right guard and move it over to left tackle,” Wypler said. “I think from a pass game standpoint, you're able to see him now understand, ‘Alright, now I got space,’ and he's big and strong and athletic. And with him in space, it's lethal.”
That said, Johnson said he has had to make some adjustments from how he played last year in order to reacclimate to playing on the edge. Specifically, Johnson says he has to be more patient in pass protection as a tackle than he had to be as a guard.
“I feel like at guard, I had that mindset of aggressive in the run game, but he's right there, so you kinda have to be aggressive in the pass game. But at tackle, that’s not the case,” Johnson said. “You gotta shift your mindset depending on his alignment, depending on the yardage, down and distance. That patience is crucial. To have a calm mindset, you can see everything because when you're angry, when you're aggressive, your vision is very narrow.”
Paris Johnson Jr. has spent extra time working on his fundamentals this offseason in preparation for his first season as Ohio State’s starting left tackle.
It was apparent Johnson’s reacclimation back to offensive tackle was still a work in progress during the spring game, when he was flagged for multiple penalties and had some struggles in pass protection against Jack Sawyer and Ohio State’s other defensive ends. But Ohio State offensive line coach Justin Frye believes being tested by the Buckeyes’ pass-rushers all offseason will have Johnson well-prepared for the competition he’ll face in real games this fall.
“You got a guy like Zach Harrison and (Javontae Jean-Baptiste) and Jack and (J.T. Tuimoloau) and you got dudes across from you rushing you every day, you better get acclimated pretty quick,” Frye said. “And he's doing it.”
Frye said Johnson has been “busting his butt all summer” to improve, and Frye is expecting big things from his new left tackle because of the work he’s put in.
“He's a fighter. He wants to be great. I think that everything he does is because he just wants to be great,” Frye said. “I'm new here, so sometimes you’re like, ‘Well, this guy's talking in cliches.’ No, it's just fact. He wants to be a really good player, he asks for the tools to be a good player, he takes those skill sets and those tools to when it’s live, and then they start working. And that's when you build confidence. And he's doing that right now.”
