UND has added a transfer OLB to its roster in the last week. Johnnie Daniels is a 6-0 210 lb linebacker who is originally from Miami, FL and attended Christopher Columbus High School where he played linebacker and was the starting running back. Daniels originally signed with Central Michigan in 2007 and then 1st year coach Butch Jones. Here is the info on Daniels from the CMU press release:
"Johnnie Daniels • Linebacker • 5-11 • 215 • Miami, Fla./Christopher Columbus High School
At Christopher Columbus High School: Spent one season at Christopher Columbus High School after transferring from Gulliver Prep … played primarily on defense at Columbus after lining up as a running back at Gulliver … earned All-Dade County honorable mention accolades in 2006 … tallied a team-leading 90 tackles … recorded four tackles for loss, one sack and four quarterback hurries … also averaged 31.9 yards per kickoff return. Personal: Parents are Johnnie and Deborah Daniels … born 1/27/89 … prep coach was Chris Merritt … chose CMU over Western Michigan, Southern Mississippi and Florida Atlantic."
Daniels was originally recruited out of high school by Butch Jones at West Virginia while Jones was the WR coach under Rich Rodriguez. When Rodriguez left for Michigan, Butch Jones took the head coaching job at Central Michigan to replace Brian Kelly, who left for Cincinnati. We all know where Kelly is now. Jones just recently replaced Kelly as the head coach at Cincinnati. Why does this matter you say? We think Butch Jones might be a good evaluator of talent given his coaching resume. Daniels was headed to West Virginia until the coaching staff fell apart that winter. Jones made such an impression on Daniels that he followed Jones to CMU and signed with them in the 2007 recruiting class.
ESPN gave Daniels a recruiting grade of 74 coming out of high school and had an extensive evaluation of him during the 2007 recruiting year. He was ranked #8 in the country at the fullback position at that time.
Daniels father, Johnnie Sr., played football for the University of Miami Hurricanes from 1977-1980 under Lou Saban and Howard Schnellenberger. He also had a brief stint in the NFL.
While at CMU he played safety, but is expected to play OLB this fall at UND and will have 2 remaining years of eligibility. He will add immediate quality depth at the OLB position and should hopefully challenge for the starting job. Here’s some film on him from youtube. He practiced for the first time today. We apologize for the delay, but we wanted to make sure everything checked out before releasing it.
As a full disclaimer, we would like to mention that we have no idea how good Daniels will be at UND. Maybe he becomes an All-American type player, maybe he never plays a down. Some kids thrive in certain situations and others wilt, so lets all keep that in mind when trying to decide how excited we should be.
