National Champion Georgia LB Pop Dumas-Johnson Key Addition for Cats

Georgia Athletics Photo

He’s played in 38 collegiate games with 24 starts and has 126 career tackles, including 17 tackles for loss, 9.5 quarterback sacks, seven pass breakups and one interception

Those are impressive numbers for Jamon “Pop” Dumas-Johnson but they are even more impressive considering he did that at Georgia and was part of the 2021 and 2022 national championship teams. He started nine games in 2023 and ended his season with 34 tackles ,5.5 tackles for loss and 11 quarterback hurries.

Now he’s transferring to Kentucky and UK coach Mark Stoops readily admits that is a “big get” for the Wildcats for a lot of reasons but mainly because he’s coming from Georgia.

“I’m sure that’ll get a lot of attention as anytime you get a transfer like that, that’s a Butkus finalist and a first-team All-American in Pop Johnson ,” Stoops said. “Brings an awful lot to our football team.  

“Again, a guy that has unbelievable experience, but has that burning desire to bring that winning culture with him and work extremely hard and fit in with us and Pop is a guy that obviously will have an immediate impact in our program, so we’re very excited about him.”

The 6-1, 245-pound Johnson has one year of eligibility remaining and is ranked as the No. 1 linebacker and 13th best overall prospect in the transfer portal. He was a second-team All-American in 2022 when he was Georgia’s second-leading tackler with 70 stops and also had 26 quarterback hurries.

“A good leader. He’s been a little more vocal this year, which I think is important,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said about the new UK linebacker during the season. “He has the pulse of the team of when to push somebody and when to back off a young player and help him and pat him on the back. So, he’s done a good job, in terms of that.”