Dominique Johnson has always been bought in
During the 2021 season, Arkansas running back Dominique Johnson had to work his way from fourth on the depth chart to the starting spot. The redshirt junior from Crowley, Texas, will try to do much of the same this fall.
As a redshirt freshman in 2021, Johnson ran for 575 yards and a team-best seven touchdowns while averaging 5.9 yards per carry. He then suffered a tough break when he tore his ACL in the Outback Bowl against Penn State on Jan. 1, 2022.
Johnson worked his way back in the fall of 2022 and he was able to see the field by Sept. 24 against Texas A&M. Things just didn't go his way, though, and Johnson eventually tore the same ACL during a late October practice.
It hasn't always been easy, but Johnson had the constant support of his teammates through two brutal injuries.
"Being around my teammates helped me get through both of those ACLs," Johnson said. "Just coming in every day and seeing those guys, just wanting to be back out there motivating me to push myself harder, to go harder in the training room to be back out there with those guys.
"Being around my teammates and the ones in the training room just being there for me, encouraging me every day telling me it's going to be alright. Going through that whole process, I feel like my teammates and the trainers helped me get through that."
Johnson will still be working behind two of the same names he competed with in 2021 — Raheim "Rocket" Sanders and AJ Green. Throw in talented sophomore Rashod Dubinion and three-star freshman Isaiah Augustave, and Johnson has his work cut out for him.
He's still not fully back, but running backs coach Jimmy Smith acknowledged that Johnson is in good shape on Saturday. At 6-foot-1, 252 pounds, Johnson is still a big running back, but it's more muscle than before.
"His body is different," Smith said. "There’s more muscle. They took care of him. Even when he was hurt, he did a good job of doing stuff, just keeping the conditioning going. They did a good job of it. He’s kind of ahead of it because he was already in condition. When he started back running, he could do more running."
There's a difference between being in shape and in game shape. Johnson still has a bit before he'd be ready to take a handoff in an actual game.
"Gotta get his body going back like it was before, but he’s doing a great job of knowing exactly what I want him to do," Smith said. "I don’t want to give him too many reps and I don’t want to break him down. I want to build on it bit by bit. We talk about that, so he understands what the situation is."
It could be easy for Johnson to let back-to-back ACL tears get to him mentally, but he seems to have taken things very well.
"Honestly, he surprised me because mentally, he’s doing a great job," Smith said. "No fall off. He was doing a good job of when he wasn’t playing, he was staying involved and I had him on the other field, kind of coaching the guys up and staying involved so he’d know what to do so when he did come back, he wouldn’t have any setback mentally."
Part of being able to stay right mentally was likely the fact that Johnson didn't really get away from football. He was around the team and in the running back room even when he couldn't be competing.
"Like I always say about Dom, I feel like he buys in," Sanders said. "Things he went through and staying here respected Coach Smith in a way and trusting him and trusting the process, I feel like he did that. He was always in the room when he wasn’t even playing last year."
Getting back to the position he was in during the 2021 season will be tough, but it's something that Johnson has done before and he's ready to try again.
"Basically now again I’m the fourth running back," Johnson said. "So I don’t feel like I have to work harder to get my spot back. I just feel like if I keep doing what I was doing, play how I play, because you know, Coach Smith is going to give everybody a chance. Like he said with the rotation, everybody is going to get a chance to start or play more than somebody else.
"So it’s not a problem for me. I feel like as long as I keep doing how I do, run my way, my way is going to come into play. Gameday, we might need it, so I just do what I do. Encourage everybody else to keep going like that."
Johnson and the Razorbacks have 23 more practices in fall camp ahead of the season opener on Saturday, Sept. 2 against Western Carolina at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.