MARSHALL, Texas – Former East Texas Baptist University football player Richard Johnson has signed a professional contract to play in Turkey. Johnson will be a part of the Yeditepe Eagles organization and is the 12^th former player to sign a professional football contract.
 
From the Yeditepe Facebook page, it says they are a professional American Football team based in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded in 2001 the Eagles use the colors green, black and white. They are participants of the Turkish Unilig and the Turkish Professional Leagues of American Football. The Eagles attend the Turkish Professional League as the "Istek Eagles".
 
Johnson became the second player at ETBU to be named a two-time AFCA All-American. He was also voted onto the D3football.com All-American first-team in 2018 as a senior becoming only the third player to earn that award and second player to be on the first-team.
 
From Cleveland, Texas, he was a four-year player and a three-year starter. He finished his senior year in 2018 catching 51 passes for 932 yards and 11 touchdowns. In the American Southwest Conference he was second in receiving yards, fourth in receptions per game (5.1), sixth in scoring touchdowns (11), and ninth in scoring (6.6 points per game). He caught 56 passes for 1,070 yard in 2017 when he earned his first All-American award.

At ETBU, he holds two records in single season touchdown receptions and career touchdown receptions. He broke the single season record with 15 in 2017 and then became the all-time leader in 2018 finishing with 40 career touchdowns surpassing Tyler Bates. He is second all-time at ETBU in receptions (162) and yards (3,029).

In his career, he had 13 games with 100+ yards receiving and four games with three or more touchdowns.