Florida State University Athletics
Johnson II Named First-Team All-American
12/9/2021 9:00:06 PM | Football
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Defensive end Jermaine Johnson II was named a first-team All-American Thursday night by the Walter Camp Football Foundation. He was previously named a first-team All-American by CBS Sports/247Sports and ESPN and a second-team All-American from The Athletic.
Last week, Johnson became the eighth Seminole to win Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year.
Johnson, from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, tallied 70 tackles and led the ACC with 18.0 tackles for loss and 12.0 sacks. His TFL and sack totals were the most by an FSU defender since DeMarcus Walker had 21.5 and 16.0, respectively, in 2016. Walker, now with the Houston Texans, also earned Defensive Player of the Year honors that season, the most recent Seminole to win the award.
Johnson leads all Power 5 defensive linemen in tackles and ranks in the top-six nationally in sacks and tackles for loss. Johnson was a four-time ACC Defensive Lineman of the Week, the most honors in 2021 for any defensive player. He opened the year with 2.5 TFL and 1.5 sacks against No. 9 Notre Dame and followed that up with 3.0 sacks and 4.0 TFL against Jacksonville State.
At Clemson, Johnson had 2.0 TFL and a strip-sack fumble that he recovered and returned for a go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter. Johnson had 3.0 sacks and 5.0 TFL in FSU’s 31-28 win over Miami and is the only Power 5 player in the country this season with multiple games with 3.0 sacks and 4.0 TFL. No player in the 66-game history of the FSU-Miami rivalry has had more TFL than Johnson, and his 5.0 were the most in any game for a Seminole since 2012. Johnson also forced a fumble against Miami that FSU recovered and turned into a touchdown.
Johnson is a finalist for the Ted Hendricks Award and was a semifinalist for the Lombardi and Bednarik Awards.
Earlier Thursday, quarterback McKenzie Milton was named a semifinalist for the Mayo Clinic Comeback Player of the Year Award. Milton, one of the ACC’s Piccolo Award winners as the league’s most courageous player, overcame multiple leg surgeries for an injury sustained in the 2018 regular season finale while at UCF. He appeared in six games for the Seminoles in 2021.