Bohls: Meet Roschon Johnson, Texas' quarterback turned tailback turned ... linebacker?

While I got ya, here are nine things and one crazy prediction:

1. Best hit. That Texas honor probably was shared by linebacker Jaylan Ford and safety Anthony Cook, who teamed up to wreck Iowa State quarterback Hunter Dekkers and force the game-saving fumble that the Longhorns recovered. The second-best tackle? Probably when Roschon Johnson flattened Iowa State kick returner Jaylin Noel in a collision that got a huge rise out of the sellout crowd. Johnson took as many pats on the back as he did for any of his rushes. Heck, the tailback even volunteered to play linebacker. “I’m serious. I would if they want me to,” the quarterback-turned-running back-turned-possible linebacker said. And he’s not kidding. Johnson said he once made a tackle in high school on a Hail Mary pass by an opponent, and he’s always willing to contribute. … Johnson is probably the most versatile player on the entire Texas roster. No joke. He should be drafted by some lucky NFL team in the third or fourth round, and that team could have him for 10 years. He’s not thrown a pass yet out of the Wildcat, but it has to be coming, right? Saturday’s tackle on the kickoff was one of four this special teams warrior has. … Johnson comes off as a serious, dedicated player who’s committed to his craft. He’s also one of the most unselfish Longhorns as he quickly accepted being moved from quarterback to tailback even though he’s never been the feature back although he could. He’s also very proud and tweeted that the 24-21 comeback win over the Cyclones was “a 5 star win,” seeming to poke at former Iowa State running back Breece Hall, who mocked the Horns after beating Texas two years ago in Austin by saying it was a win for “five-star culture vs. five-star players.” Johnson’s anything but cocky. When asked Monday about his tweet that got more than 6,000 likes, he said, “Yeah, I was not trying to poke him or whatever. But for many years we’d been criticized for a lot of things about not having the best culture to win games. I thought it was pretty good to tweet.” Amen.

Bohls: It may have been ugly but Texas did enough to beat Iowa State

2. Road weary. Have you seen the latest rankings by ESPN’s Football Power Index? It’s got Texas sitting at No. 5 despite two losses, up there along with No. 13 TCU and No. 16 Oklahoma State. The projections have the Longhorns' percentage of winning out, which would be a nine-game win streak, at 19% and Tennessee at only 5%. Furthermore, Texas has an 8.4% shot of reaching the College Football Playoffs and a 1.4% chance of winning a natty. Sounds realistic to me. … Saturday’s game at Oklahoma State represents Steve Sarkisian’s first chance to win four consecutive games at Texas, something he did three times at Washington and once at USC. He won three straight with the Longhorns last year — the first two at home — against Rice, Texas Tech and TCU, three teams that went a combined 16-21. Yes, we’re all well aware that Texas has gone 1-5 in true road games under Sarkisian with a victory at TCU last year, but I’d put an asterisk by that woeful record. The biggest reason is that quarterback Quinn Ewers played in none of those losses. In addition, this bunch of Longhorns are so much more mentally tough than last year’s team that got scorched at Arkansas (Hudson Card’s second start and the Armageddon setting), at Morgantown (both Texas quarterbacks were banged up), at Waco (three turnovers by Joshua Moore), at Lubbock (a rare Bijan Robinson fumble in overtime) and at Ames (no excuse and a total second-half meltdown).

Golden: Texas knows close games and Saturday will be no different

3. Just go for it. Loved seeing Utah’s Kyle Whittingham go for two in the final 48 seconds and quarterback Cam Rising run it in to eclipse USC last Saturday. I just don’t understand why more coaches don’t choose that strategy over the conservative move of playing for overtime. If a coach has one play to win or lose the game and the other coach has no recourse, why wouldn’t he take it? I asked Sarkisian about his general philosophy. He said he didn’t watch the game live because he took his wife Loreal to a birthday dinner, but he did check it out on his phone between appetizers. “Yeah, I was looking under the table,” he joked. “… You have to have a feel for the momentum of the game. I know USC has a heck of a team and can be hard to stop, and Kyle is very aggressive with stuff like that.” So is Sark immune to such gambles? “Not at all,” he said.

4. Austin FC's gutsy keeper. After he’d swatted away two kicks and very nearly a third in the 3-1 clinching shootout victory over Real Salt Lake on Sunday, helping Austin FC advance to Sunday night’s Western Conference semifinals against FC Dallas, you’d think goalkeeper Brad Stuver might ought to consider a trip to Vegas for all the strong hunches he has to make guarding the net. “I hate poker,” the Austin FC goalkeeper said with a laugh. “I don’t have the patience for it.” Asked if he looks for body language or any other actions that might tip him off to whether the kicker might be going left or right, Stuver said, “No, I mostly just go with my gut feeling.” He kidded that Austin FC's stats crew had studied the top six RSL players most likely to take the penalty kicks, but “none of the six did a kick. We were just guessing on the fly.” … Tell me again why Josh Wolff wasn’t one of the three finalists for the MLS coach of the year award. Is it jealousy? Is it envy over Q2 Stadium? Has any MLS team done more this season than Austin FC, which improved from next-to-last in 2021 to a clear No. 2 seed in the West and now sits as one of the final eight teams. … I don’t get soccer sometimes. The MLS has gone to a single game, winner-take-all format in every round of the playoffs, even the Cup final, but insists on playing two 15-minute extra periods of overtime if the score is tied at the end of regulation. What’s wrong with sudden death? The 120 minutes of play were especially grueling in the October heat with 90-degree temperatures, so why not just shorten it to sudden-death, 10-minute overtimes until the outcome is decided?

Bohls: Austin FC fell behind 2-0, but came back to win in first round of the MLS Cup playoffs

5. Bobcats turning a corner. Texas State nearly made it two in a row but fell just short to knocking off a very good Troy team, whose only losses have been to unbeaten Ole Miss and a road game to Appalachian State on a Hail Mary pass. The Bobcats are getting strong play from transfer quarterback Layne Hatcher, who first went to Alabama and then Arkansas State before switching to San Marcos. “He’s a tough kid,” Bobcats coach Jake Spavital said of Hatcher, who threw for more than 15,000 yards for four high school state champions and a 41-1 record. “He’s just a fascinating kid because he was a four-time state-champion wrestler who once considered wrestling for Oklahoma State. He’s one of the toughest kids I’ve ever been around.” Not bad for a two-star recruit.

6. Texas volleyball keeps rolling. The Texas women’s volleyball team coasted past Big 12 rival Baylor in four sets, dropping the second set after leading 12-3 and 21-14. Looks like the undefeated and top-ranked Longhorns are so good they get bored. Wouldn’t surprise me if some of their best games come in intrasquad practices.

7. Random bits. Texas' women's hoopsters are No. 3 nationally in the preseason poll? Too low? … Biggest misperception is that Lane Kiffin is all about the pass. Against Auburn, his Ole Miss team ran the ball 69 times for 448 yards. The Rebels rank third in the nation with 1,901 rushing yards. … Did you see that Volunteers fans carted off the goalposts after knocking off Alabama and dumped them in the river? My buddy Kevin Sherrington suggested the Tennessee athletic department retrieve, cut ‘em up into little pieces and sell them as souvenirs for a fortune. Smart idea.

8. Scattershooting. While wondering whatever happened to Tyler native Brandon Pettigrew, one of the best Oklahoma State tight ends ever. ... I heard former Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow is an owner of a Mexican soccer team.

9. On the couch. Checked out “Dear Evan Hansen,” a film adaptation from a Tony Award-winning musical about a high school senior with social anxiety disorder dealing with the suicide of a classmate. Vicki and I saw the Broadway play and loved it as much as the movie. Gave it seven ducks.

Crazy prediction: In the afterglow of an accurate forecast of a Tennessee win over Alabama, we offer a Houston Astros World Series title with only two more losses in the next two series.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas football: Roschon Johnson continues to show his versatility