On Tuesday afternoon, the University of Miami announced that freshman DE D.J. Johnson would be transferring from the program.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami announced Tuesday that defensive lineman DJ Johnson has decided to leave the football program.

“DJ indicated to me that he would like to continue his playing career closer to his family,” head coach Mark Richt said.

Johnson, a freshman from Sacramento, Calif., played in eight games for the Hurricanes this past season, recording three tackles.

Johnson took to twitter to offer an explanation for his move to transfer:

There has been other attrition from the roster in recent days, but this one hurts. a 4-star recruit in the 2017 recruiting class, Johnson came to Miami from Sacramento, CA. Johnson held the most scholarship offers of any player in the 2017 recruiting class, 100 offers, and chose Miami over all of them.

At 65” 270lbs, Johnson has great size to stay at DE or even flex inside to DT at times. He routinely ran the 100M dash in the 11 second range in HS, which is ridiculous for a man of his size.

At Miami, however, Johnson struggled to get on the field as a freshman, as evidenced by his 3 tackles in 8 games this season. Meanwhile, fellow freshman DE Jonathan Garvin earned his way onto the field and has the makings of a star int he very near future for Miami.

Losing a player of Johnson’s size, athletic ability, and developing skill is a blow to Miami’s defensive line group, which was a strength of the team in the 2017 season. Johnson will sit out a year before playing at the transfer destination of his choosing.

While we wish he would have stayed, family comes first, and we wish DJ Johnson the best in his future endeavors.

Go Canes