Tulsa’s Damaris Johnson Named to Preseason All-America Team

Johnson caught 78 passes for a team-high 1,131 yards and had three touchdowns for the Hurricane in 2009. He also had a 24.6 kickoff return and 14.2 punt return average. Johnson ranked third in Conference USA for receiving yards per game at 94.2 yards. He had the highest yards per reception among the top-7 C-USA receivers.

A second-team all-C-USA selection as a receiver and punt returner, Johnson averaged 224.4 all-purpose yards a year ago. He now ranks eighth on C-USA’s all-purpose yardage list with 5,168 yards in just two seasons. Johnson had 2,475 all-purpose yards in 2008 and last year totaled 2,693 yards. He needs 2,405 yards to tie Conference USA’s all-time leader DeAngelo Williams of Memphis (2002-05) for first place.

With 2,513 career kickoff return yards, he needs just 60 more yards to surpass Jason Jacoby (1994-97) to become Tulsa’s career kickoff-return yardage leader.

Last year, Johnson had six 100+ receiving games, four 100+ KO return games and seven 200+ all-purpose games. He had 300+ all-purpose yards in three games, including Houston, East Carolina and Southern Miss. Johnson had 52 plays go for over 20+ yards a year ago and now has 103 plays in his career go for more than 20 yards.