Notre Dame Football: Can Irish rely on Jordan Johnson at receiver in 2020?

One of the biggest question marks for the Notre Dame football team is the receiver position. Could freshman Jordan Johnson be a big part of the answer?

Notre Dame football has had multiple different players step up to take the lead in the receiving corps over the past few seasons. Most notably, Miles Boykin and Chase Claypool have emerged as seniors to the go-to guy for quarterback Ian Book in each of the past two Fighting Irish campaigns. And with the 2020 season on the horizon, much of the talk has focused on who would step up for the Irish this season.

At first, many thought that Kevin Austin — a guy who has had an up and down career in South Bend — would be the guy to make the leap this season.

Unfortunately for Austin, a foot injury that required surgery will hold him out for at least the beginning part of the 2020 season.

Clearly, with Austin being out, it begs the question of who will fill the void at receiver.

Ben Skowronek — a graduate transfer from Northwestern — will certainly garner a lot of interest. Javon McKinley, Braden Lenzy, and Lawrence Keys, III will all certainly have a lot to prove in the Irish receiver room. But what about highly touted freshman Jordan Johnson?

Since arriving in South Bend, Johnson has been impressive, at least in terms of what has been said by the coaching staff following limited opportunities for Johnson to get on the practice field.

In a year where there will be a lot of question marks for a variety of reasons, it might not be the craziest stretch to say that Johnson has a ton of opportunity to add something to Notre Dame’s passing game. After all, Skowronek is new to the program, while Lenzy and Keys are still ripe.

Johnson has big play ability and that’s something that Notre Dame has certainly lacked a bit in recent memory. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the talented freshman get on the field quite a bit in 2020.