A couple months back, I caught up with Boise State running back Ian Johnson. You can read that story from CSTV.com here.
The junior Heisman candidate had a lot more to say, though, so here is the rest of the interview.
HP: You were banged up quite a bit toward the end of last season. What was spring like for you?
IJ: I didn’t participate in spring ball. I had some bone bruises, an injured posterior cruciate ligament and I had to rehab my quad, too.
HP: Going into your career, did you ever imagine things would turn out the way they have?
IJ: I never saw it coming. I thought that maybe I’d be an okay college football player. I never thought I would be an integral part of such a great team. I’ve still got a lot of work to do, though.
HP: How has it been adjusting to your new-found celebrity?
IJ: It’s been a bit of a shock. I try to just be myself. Things are pretty amazing around Boise. We just get mobbed everywhere we go. I have to learn to manage my time a bit more.
HP: Were you planning the whole time to propose to your girlfriend the way you did?
IJ: I was going to do it back home in California. (My girlfriend) kept asking when it was going to happen. I finally got her to fit some rings and got her thinking it was going to happen around Christmas. But then I decided to do it after the game, so I staged a phone call from a bank where they told me that I had lost my money and that threw her off the trail. She was sad about it not happening, so she was really shocked when it finally did happen.
HP: You weren’t recruited very hard by a whole lot of Pac-10 schools. Oregon State sort of slow-played you during the recruiting process. When you played Oregon State last year, did you feel like you had something to prove to them?
IJ: I’m not very vindictive. I’m not about revenge. That kind of stuff can consume you. If a school doesn’t want me, then I just have to show them they were wrong when I play them. It just so happened my big breakout game was against Oregon State. How ironic! But I’m glad they passed on me. If that hadn’t happened, then I wouldn’t be married now.
HP: What’s it like playing in Boise State’s sophisticated offense?
IJ: Everything in this offense happens for a reason. We have a very well-determined, very flexible offense. Everything mimics something else. We pride ourselves on the number of shifts and formations that we show. We can run the same play 10 times in a row, and not one of them would look the same because we would do it from 10 different formations.
HP: Is the offense difficult to learn?
IJ: You start learning it your first year. We install one play on day one of fall practice. We learn that play until everyone is 100 per cent on board. We do not move forward until that play is down.
HP: What are your personal goals for this season?
IJ: I don’t set numbers for myself. If you do that, you get disappointed, or you settle. I just want to make sure I know my pass protections, that I improve in my blocking. I want to get better at holding off linebackers when I pass block.
HP: What do you want to do when football is over?
IJ: One thing I want to do is to start some academies for underprivileged youth, kids on drugs. I want to house five to six kids and help them get through school and teach them how to live right. I started thinking about this a lot after meeting Max Ah-You, the cousin of (Oklahoma defensive tackle) C.J. Ah You, after the Fiesta Bowl. I was left by the team bus and I tried to get a ride from him and we started talking about it, so that’s my plan.
HP: What can you do to improve as a runner?
IJ: I need to be more efficient. I’m not a blazer, I’m a disciplined runner. I just need to stay disciplined and get more efficient.
HP: When do you feel you arrived as a football player?
IJ: I think the games where I was hurt did it for me. I did have that huge game, scoring five TDs against OSU. It was the kind of game to get out of my system, but there’s no need to ever be that selfish again. It was after I tore my PCL and collapsed my lung later in the season that I really found myself. When I came out and played against San Jose State after being in the hospital, that’s when I knew I could make it. I don’t remember about 75 per cent of that game. I figure there will never be a worse time than to have your lung punctured. Everyone can play when things are going well, but not many can say they did it with a punctured lung.
The most famous man in Idaho is back for his junior year
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