Jaleel Johnson, DeSean Brown Ready to Step into Larger Roles as Juniors

STILLWATER — Battling a sickness, Jaleel Johnson almost didn’t make the trip up to Stillwater the summer going into his senior year at Putnam City North, but little did he know that drive up I-35 would be a start to the rest of his life.

Greg Richmond, who was Oklahoma State’s defensive line coach at the time, was telling him to make it out to OSU’s camp, but Johnson almost skipped it as he had been throwing up. Johnson toughed it out and went.

“Jim Knowles was still here,” Johnson said. “He was coaching me how to go against the offensive linemen that were here and all that. I was doing what I was doing. I was mainly just long-arming them, and it was working.

“I remember at the end of the camp, Jim Knowles was like, ‘Hey, Coach Gundy wants to talk to you. I was thinking maybe a, ‘You’re doing good. We see you, we just wanna keep seeing you.’ But I went up there and within the first two sentences he was just saying, ‘Hey, we’re offering you to come play here.’ It was crazy because how fast it was. It was a really cool experience, though.”

Johnson didn’t commit right away. He already had offers from Texas Tech, Kansas State, Baylor, Iowa State, Missouri, SMU and others. But he knew he wanted to stay in state, and while he didn’t instantly declare, Johnson said in his head, he sort of already knew he was going to be a Cowboy. Less than two weeks later, he did commit.

Johnson said he was 226 pounds when he first got to Stillwater ahead of the 2022 season. He’s entering his redshirt junior year at 265 pounds.

There are many examples of “Body by Glass” success stories, but if you were going to make a promotional poster for the slogan, Johnson should probably be featured on it.

Here’s a picture from before his freshman season:

And here is what he looked like in OSU’s spring game this past April:

Johnson was one of two in-state edge rushers the Cowboys brought in from that 2022 class alongside Choctaw standout DeSean Brown. Brown was the more highly regarded recruit of the two, drawing offers from Oklahoma, Oregon, Michigan, Nebraska and others.

Both are still with the Pokes, as Brown enters his redshirt junior season at 6-foot-2, 275 pounds. The pair has combined to make 55 total tackles, 10 tackles for loss and 4.5 sacks as Cowboys.

The two roomed together as freshmen, helping each other grow to the point where they are now.

“If something goes wrong, we both understand we have someone we can bounce ideas off of,” Brown said. “Like, ‘Hey, he sits like this. He sits like that. Take these steps. Be more aggressive.’ We encourage each other along the way.”

With the Cowboys’ top four sack-getters from last season gone, it sounds like Gundy is expecting those two, two of the defensive ends who have been in Stillwater the longest, to take another step forward in 2025.

“It’s time for those guys to make plays,” Gundy said. “They’ve been in the system now for a number of years. The history of our culture is, when those guys start to get to where they’re at in their career is when they should start making plays.”

It sounds like the two pass rushers share that sentiment.

“This is the year I feel like everything I’ve learned to this point will come into fruition,” Johnson said.