LOS ANGELES — The straightforward decision was to explore his options. Enter the transfer portal. Fatten his wallet through Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and join a ready-made program.
That, nevertheless, didn’t interest Quentin Johnston, despite the change in coaches at TCU after a dismal 5-7 campaign.
“Leaving never crossed my mind,” the star wideout said Saturday on the L.A. Convention Center. “People got here as much as me, asking me, sort of just assuming [I was going to transfer].
I got here here due to the longevity and stuff, and culture coach [Gary Patterson] and his staff had built. But after they left, by that point, I didn’t just fall in love with the football program. I fell in love with the TCU community as an entire. And, plus, I built relationships with people on the team, lots of my brothers that I got here in with.”
Johnston received overtures from other programs, guarantees of massive paydays. There was a temporary time that he considered entering the portal. But that was before sitting down with Sonny Dykes, TCU’s recent coach, and his position coach, Malcolm Kelly, was retained. They’d a detailed relationship going back to his recruitment.
Dykes sat down with Johnston’s parents, and broached the topic of NIL. They didn’t wish to hear about it. All that mattered was the plan Dykes and his staff had for his or her son, on and off the sector.
“I believe to me that’s the nice lesson in all of this,” Dykes said. “And I believe everybody desires to be compensated for his or her abilities. And everybody desires to have a chance to extend their standing financially. But at the tip of the day, I believe the blokes that make the big-picture decisions really are those that get rewarded.”
Johnston’s decision was the primary domino to fall that arrange this miraculous season for TCU, a 12 months no one could’ve predicted. It’s not only what Johnson has done on the sector, and the junior from Temple, Texas, has performed exceptionally well, catching 59 passes for 1,066 yards and 6 touchdowns. When Dykes took the job, there have been 4 players he was told he had to maintain. Johnston was the lone player to remain.
“It was necessary not just for his talent, but I believe it was also an endorsement from him,” Dykes said. “Everybody was on the lookout for someone to say, ‘Look, I’m jumping on the train.’ And Quentin did that for us.”
Looking back now, the 6-foot-4 Johnston can’t help but take into consideration what a smart selection he made. He significantly raised his NFL draft stock, to the purpose he often is the first receiver taken in April, and he’ll get to play within the national championship on Monday night, a key a part of one among college football’s great underdog stories. Odds are, that wouldn’t have happened had he opted to transfer. From the surface, TCU can have looked like a nasty situation, coming off a losing season with a recent coach. But it surely wasn’t.
“Simply because the situation looks rocky, that doesn’t mean it’s,” Johnston said. “I used to be offered money and every type of stuff like that. But I feel there’s more [to life] than simply a paycheck.”