Four-star quarterback, Gabarri Johnson, talks commitment to Missouri

Photo Credit: @GabarriJohnson5

Being from Washington, the last place four-star quarterback, Gabarri Johnson, would have thought he’d commit to was the University of Missouri. But that’s exactly where he ended up choosing.

Gabarri Johnson is a six-foot, 200-pound quarterback out of Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington. He is ranked as the No. 4 recruit in Washington, No. 20 quarterback, and the No. 366 overall recruit in the country. He joined me on Instagram Live for an interview on Monday afternoon.

Gabarri Johnson Interview

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CgKh6KzpeAn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Prior to his official visit to Missouri, Johnson had never been to Missouri, and didn’t know much about the school. “I didn’t know what to expect; never really heard of Mizzou like that, never been there, never met anybody there,” Johnson said. “So it was crazy to be like ‘wow, this is where I’ll end up.”

But that visit changed everything in Johnson’s eyes, and it made it clear to him that Missouri is the place he wants to be. “When I went down there, I enjoyed every part of it, more than any other school obviously,” Johnson said. “I just liked how all the people were down there…it was genuine. They wanted me there than just to be like ‘our school or university is going to add another four, five, three-star kid. It was more like they wanted me for me.”

At Lincoln High School, Johnson has had a coaching staff that cares more about the players as people than players, and a coaching staff that prepares the players how to be young men for the rest of their lives. At Mizzou, Johnson saw a lot of similarities between their coaching staff and his high school coaching staff.

“They’re like goofy to me, they’re not super serious, that’s what I like about coaches,” Johnson said. “We’ll be down there cracking jokes, that’s what I love most about the coaches because you can have fun with them.”

As the quarterback commit for Mizzou’s 2023 recruiting class, Johnson is working on both his relationship with his fellow Mizzou commits, and is also doing his own recruiting to try and bring more talented prospects to Missouri.

“We’re still building with each other, like we got a whole group chat, we’ll be texting in there,” Johnson said. “It’s cool to talk to people from all parts of the country, and know that you are the next upcoming stars for that school.”

Missouri’s recruiting class currently contains seven commitments, and Johnson is one of two four stars in that class along with four-star tight end, Brett Norfleet, out of Francis Howell High School in Saint Charles, Missouri. The Tigers’ class is ranked as the No. 62 recruiting class in the country. “Just trying to build up the class,” Johnson said. “Running backs, receivers; offensive side of the ball, I promise you, I’m working on getting some more great players there, gonna figure out how to do it and make it happen.”

Missouri was the outlier in Johnson’s recruitment in that he was primarily interested in West Coast schools, or schools closer to home. “I liked U-Dub [University of Washington] obviously as my hometown school. I liked Utah for a while too,” Johnson said. “Then there were other schools that I would’ve tried to hit up more, like UCLA would’ve been one probably.”

But the recruiting process works in interesting ways, and the school Gabarri Johnson would have probably least expected to commit to, he is committed to in Missouri. He may have had to go half way across the country to find it, but he found the place for him in the end.