In which BracketCat counts down the 10th day until the 2024 kickoff with a profile of Kansas State wide receiver Keagan Johnson.
Goal No. 10: NEVER GIVE UP. Never, never, never.
#10 Keagan Johnson
Redshirt Junior | 6-0 | 206 lbs. | Omaha, Nebraska
Courtesy Kansas State Athletics
- Position: Wide Receiver
- Previous College: University of Iowa
- Projection: Starter
- Status: On Scholarship
Keagan Johnson (b. Sept. 13, 2002) is a deep threat transfer from Iowa who stormed into spring and fall camp in 2023 to claim the No. 1 wide receiver position for himself. But injuries hampered him through the year and Jayce Brown ended up outperforming him.
Johnson played in 13 games in 2021 at Iowa with nine starts as a true freshman, hauling in 18 receptions for 352 yards and two touchdowns, including a career-high 92 receiving yards and a touchdown on two receptions during his first career start against Colorado State.
His first career catch was a 43-yard touchdown, while he also had a career-long reception of 49 yards and set a career high with five catches at Northwestern, for a total of 68 yards.
Johnson tallied a 27-yard touchdown reception against Minnesota and had two total catches against the Golden Gophers, while he also had multi-catch games against Penn State, Purdue and at Wisconsin. He tallied a 12-yard rush against the Badgers.
However, Johnson only saw time in two games in 2022 as he missed 10 games due to injury, thus this served as his redshirt season. He caught two passes for 11 yards against Nevada.
Johnson bounced back in 2023 to see action in 11 games with five starts, totaling 227 receiving yards and two touchdowns on 24 catches. He also ran it eight times for 26 yards.
Johnson easily had his best game of the season at Texas, hauling in a career-high seven passes for 70 yards and his first touchdown of the season. He also had a touchdown in K-State’s win at Kansas.
In all, Johnson tallied at least 31 receiving yards on three occasions, including against NC State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl; carded three catches apiece against Troy, Baylor and NC State; tallied a 13-yard rush at Texas Tech; and returned a kickoff 19 yards against UCF.
Chris Klieman had no shortage of praise for Johnson during pre-2023 media appearances:
Keagan Johnson was exceptional in the spring and it’s carried over into the fall. … Keagan is an exceptionally talented guy. He has a great feel for the game and high-points the ball and uses his body well to catch the ball. He’s a complete, complete receiver. He has a chance to be really special.
We are asking him to come in and fill the need that Malik (Knowles) left. He had an exceptional spring of football for us. Will (Howard) didn’t get very many reps with him, so I know those two have gotten together a lot over the summer to work on their timing of things. Keagan is an explosive football player and runs extremely good routes and has great ball skills. I don’t know how it’s all going to shake out as far as how many balls he’s going to catch, but the only thing I could’ve told you last year was that Deuce (Vaughn) was going to get the football. I don’t know how much it’s going to be between Phillip (Brooks), Keagan, RJ Garcia, (Ben) Sinnott, Treshaun (Ward) and DJ (Giddens), which makes it exciting for Collin Klein. We have so many people we can get the football to.
Will Howard may not have had much time with Johnson, but he still came away impressed:
Keagan ran 22.3 miles per hour today, I think it was. Man, he was cruising. He can absolutely cruise, and he’s a stout guy, too. He has some legs on him, and man, he can fly. He can straight fly.
His new quarterback, Avery Johnson, agrees with Howard’s assessment of his potential:
This offseason, he really took on that leadership role. He’s a real quiet keep-to-himself type of guy. We had to call on him to step up and be more vocal because when he does talk, he has really good things to say. A lot of people can learn from Keagan because he’s played on some of the highest stages, so being able to take as much knowledge from him (is big). Then on the field, he’s looked light-years — really good this fall and really good this spring as well. He’s just continuing to elevate his game.
My job is to get him the ball. If I see single coverage his way, I’m putting it over there the whole time.
Johnson, who is majoring in communication studies, prepped under head coach Michael Huffman at Bellevue West High School in Omaha, where he was rated as an athlete by On3, which placed him No. 19 nationally in the Class of 2021.
He also was viewed as the 22nd-best athlete in the nation by 247Sports, which rated him the second-best overall prospect in the state of Nebraska.
Johnson earned first-team Super State honors as both a junior and a senior from the Lincoln Journal Star, while he was named one of the top six players in the state of Nebraska prior to the 2020 season by the Omaha World-Herald, as well as an all-state performer by the paper.
He totaled 1,612 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns over three prep seasons, including a 935-yard, 10-touchdown campaign as a senior, and also rushed 33 times for 263 yards and nine touchdowns during his career.
Johnson also returned 19 kickoffs for 371 yards (a 19.5-yard average) and 20 punts for 171 yards (8.6-yard average) over his final three campaigns, making him a dark horse to fill those roles for K-State as well. He was named a team captain as a senior and also played baseball.
Johnson offered this assessment of his abilities when talking to D. Scott Fritchen last year:
There’s a lot of areas of my game that I’m working on, but if I had to pinpoint one thing, I’m well rounded. I have pretty good speed, strong hands, I pride myself on being a good route runner with good breaks. I don’t like to talk too highly of myself because I know two years from now there’ll be more things that I’ve learned and added to my game.
His prior offensive coordinator, Collin Klein, had a more rosy assessment, to say the least:
He’s a big-time outside receiver. He’s got in-line speed to run by some people. He has really good twitch and burst out of breaks. His ability to put his foot in the ground, change direction, create separation on the comeback at the top of the route, is as good as I’ve seen in a minute.
We never really quite saw that game-changing, difference-making quality, which leads me to believe Johnson’s injuries were more nagging than originally suspected. Assistant head coach and cornerbacks coach Van Malone’s comments last week seem to reinforce this:
The wide receivers, who every day I get an opportunity to experience the trash talking that they can give, but from an athletic standpoint, from a performance standpoint, it’s really been exciting to watch Keagan Johnson operate in a healthy mode. I’ve just been really impressed with what he’s done.
If that’s not enough to whet your appetite, check out this D. Scott Fritchen feature article:
(Johnson) earned the praise of K-State offensive coordinator Conor Riley. He earned the praise of quarterback Avery Johnson. K-State head coach Chris Klieman made the greatest statement of them all.
“Keagan Johnson is a guy that, if we keep him healthy, he’s one of the best wide receivers in the Big 12,” Klieman said. “He continues to improve.”
Prior to transferring to K-State, Johnson picked Iowa and its struggle-bus offense over offers from Iowa State, Kansas State, Nebraska, North Dakota State, Northern Illinois, South Dakota State and Wyoming, as well as recruiting interest from Minnesota and Northwestern.
His father, Clester Johnson, played college football at Nebraska in the 1990s.
One of his older brothers, CJ played at Wyoming and became a prime target for future Pro-Bowl quarterback Josh Allen, while another brother, Cade went to South Dakota State, earned second-team All-American honors in 2018 and was named to the Walter Camp FCS All-America Team in 2019.
He went from undrafted free agent to the Seattle Seahawks’ de facto third receiver in 2023.
“Honestly, people ask me all the time how I project Keagan to be, and he’s a 10 times better (National Football League) prospect than I was coming out of college, and he still has many years to get better before reaching this next phases of his life,” said Cade Johnson.
“The best thing is he has so much more potential that he has yet to tap into.”