One element of Korey Johnson’s game is not in question. The Air Force junior cornerback can play.

“He’s lengthy, he’s strong,” Air Force receiver Matt Long said of the 6-foot, 195-pound Arizona native. “He has an NFL build.

“I think he’s one of the toughest dudes to get open against.”

Watching him in preseason scrimmages, Johnson has defended passes, locked receivers at the line and has generally looked like a polished product.

“Korey does have good power and has really good short-area quickness,” coach Troy Calhoun said. “He had moments last year where he played good football.”

The challenge for Johnson, and a deep batch of Air Force cornerbacks, is fully tapping into that ability to ensure those moments are something more akin to full-game performances. Air Force opens the season against Duquesne at Falcon Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 5.

“For me, personally, it’s literally just doing my job every single play,” Johnson said when asked for the primary takeaway from a challenging sophomore year. “If I focus on doing my job and trust my brothers to do theirs, that’s how I know we’re going to be at our best.”

Johnson opened last season as a starting cornerback as part of a young defensive secondary that saw underclassmen thrown into the mix at all five positions. The ensuing growing pains were intense, as the team started 1-5 and gave up an average of 543 total yards (354 yards per game in the air) during a five-game losing streak.

Johnson led the team in pass breakups (five) and scored the team’s first defensive touchdown in seven years with a 34-yard fumble return in the opener, but he played the next five games as a backup after the Falcons shuffled the starting lineup.

Johnson started the finale at Colorado State.

Thus far Johnson has held a starting role throughout fall camp. In the opposite spot sophomore Ehimen Oyamendan has moved to the top of the depth chart as sophomore R.J. Reedus has been out with a shoulder injury.

The team also has junior Mikhail Seiken (nine starts last year) and sophomore Jordan Elie-Stuart (one start) battling for time at a position that exposed a lot of young players to game action last year, for better or worse.

The depth chart also includes a pair of freshmen in Mikey Inweh, who stands 6-4, and Thomas Young as well as 6-3 sophomore Jerome Drain.

“I’m wide open to anybody that, day in, day out, they prove it — at any position,” Calhoun said. “Darn right.”

In addition to the physical attributes, Johnson has the background to profile as a special cornerback.

His father, Marvin, was an enlisted airman.

From a household instilled with military discipline — “you knew we weren’t going to tolerate any (bad behavior); you had to be a decent person” — produced Johnson’s two older siblings, a brother who played football at South Dakota School of Mines and works for an energy company in Brighton and a sister who earned a graduate degree from Northern Arizona.

“Growing up with smart siblings, and competent and challenging siblings as well, that drove me to be a bit better,” Johnson said. “Especially as the youngest, I got to see their mistakes and tried not to make the same mistakes. But I also got to see their successes and tried to copy that as well.”

And as the youngest, like a good cornerback, he learned to be a pest.

“I used to just annoy my siblings, and I still do it to a couple of my teammates on a pretty regular basis,” Johnson said. “Especially Mikhail.

“Going through this journey is literally just trying to not change yourself as you’re going through it. You want to stay consistent as close as you can to your character while changing the context of your situation.”

The change Johnson welcomes from himself and the secondary mostly comes in how they handle adversity. He’d like more accountability this year and a quicker recognition of what might be going wrong, which must come from an openness to accepting responsibility and can’t come from pointing fingers.

Johnson has no shortage of confidence, a prerequisite at a position where you’re often left one-on-one in space against some of the opposition’s best athletes.

“Corner is one of those positions where you could play 99 great snaps, but that 100th snap could throw you off and throw you out of your rhythm,” he explained. “That is part of the challenge. I play a position of amnesia. If you don’t have it, you can’t play corner.”

How the position plays out remains to be seen. There’s precedent as recently as 2024, when the Falcons rotated three cornerbacks at the two positions through most of the season, so that option remains on the table.

What has played out this month at the position is increased intensity in every practice, every team situation and every drill as each cornerback tries to gain an advantage.

“Just seeing how hard they push each other, it’s inspiring,” said Long, offering the perspective of a receiver who is lining up on the other side of the competing corners. “It’s motivating in our room as well. It kind of pushes us to push each other.”

That consistent elevated focus might go a long way to fixing the main lingering concern for a secondary long on talent but still seeking the steady results that match.

“Dependability is the best ability, that’s something that the coaches stress here,” Johnson said. “I want to be a guy that they can depend on every single day.”