In early December 2021, Academy of Holy Angels running back Emmett Johnson had just won Minnesota's Mr. Football award, but he only had a small array of scholarship offers from directional schools.

The 5-foot-11, 200-pound Minneapolis native had offers from North Dakota, South Dakota, South Dakota State, Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, Western Kentucky and Northern Iowa.

That might seem like an under-recruitment for a player deemed to be the best in the state that year, but it’s commonplace for a Mr. Football to end up at a smaller school. While there are rare comets such as Michael Floyd, the Cretin-Derham Hall receiver who went to Notre Dame and had a seven-year NFL career, there are many more award winners who don’t play at the FBS level.

Johnson was in that latter group — until

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