FRISCO, Texas - Oklahoma State’s 2026 roster is almost unrecognizable, and that’s by design.
With nearly 90 new players on campus and close to 20 of them coming from North Texas, the Cowboys have spent this offseason rebuilding around new head coach Eric Morris, who arrived after coaching there last year. Morris pulled in transfers from all over the country while also keeping a handful of Mike Gundy recruits in the fold.
At Big 12 Media Days, one veteran made a strong argument that the deepest room on the team might be the one he knows best.
Jaleel Johnson is entering his fourth season at Oklahoma State and will finish his career where it started, something that has become a rarity in college football. He also has some catching up to do after missing most of last season with a shoulder injury. While he was sidelined, he watched Morris and his staff remake the roster - and, in his view, build the team’s strongest position group.
“There’s not one person in that group that I have a worry about,” Johnson said. “Those guys work their behinds off.
I’m just excited to see what they can do. Everyone is versatile, so we can mix and match, we can play schemes and things like that.”
Johnson is expected to open the season as a starter at one of the end spots, and Morris said he was one of the most impressive players at the position during spring work. On the other side, senior James Williams is projected to start after stops at three different schools before arriving at OSU.
Inside, the Cowboys are expected to lean on Saadiq Clements, who played at North Texas last season, and Jerry Lawson, who came over from Louisville in 2025, in defensive coordinator Skyler Cassity’s 4-2-5 scheme.
What has Johnson most fired up, though, is what comes after the projected starters. DeSean Brown and Keviyan Huddleston are in line to back up on the edge, while Enai White and Luke Webb could fill in inside. Johnson also pointed to more names who give the room a different kind of flexibility.
“We’ve got guys like Malik Charles, he can play all across the board,” Johnson said. “We have DJ [Jackson Jr.] and he can play both sides, rush or play in.”
Of course, depth on paper is only part of the story. A crowded room can mean a team has a couple of difference-makers ready to emerge, or it can mean a defense is hoping to create pressure in waves.
Johnson has made his case. The rest will come down to what Oklahoma State shows once the season begins.
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This One Early Game Could Define Oklahoma States Post-Gundy Reset
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The one that stands out is the Big 12 opener at West Virginia on Sept. 26, a road game that comes at a point where the Cowboys could be carrying real confidence or already feeling the weight of the rebuild. A win there would put Oklahoma State in position to spend the bye week looking up the standings and thinking about a bowl path, while a loss would make the early climb that much steeper and leave the reset feeling even more fragile. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma State Fans Need A New Iowa State Scouting Report Fast
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Hunter Raynor is the name to know at quarterback, with Pettaway set to bring explosive playmaking to the backfield and Terrell projected to help anchor the edge on defense. There are still a few holdovers who could matter, but the larger challenge for anyone studying Iowa State is figuring out how quickly all of those pieces fit together, and which ones become the early tone-setters once the season starts. [Read more 🡒]