Johnson was originally recruited to Louisville in 2023 as a low 4-star (.9008) in the 24/7 composite. He redshirted that year, making de minimis appearances without recording any stats in three regular season games as well as in the conference championship and bowl games which don’t count for redshirting purposes.
From the beginning of Johnson’s redshirt freshman season in 2024, he was part of a three-man rotation of tight ends that was deployed in mostly similar ways, but there were changes to how exactly each of those three were utilized over the course of the season.