Leon Johnson III could be a key player in Bedlam, but how did he end up at Oklahoma State?
Scott WrightThe Oklahoman
STILLWATER — After three productive seasons at Division III George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon, receiver Leon Johnson III heard from a couple of people suggesting he should enter his name into the NCAA transfer portal.
So he did.
Then he waited.
And waited.
Two weeks went by without so much as a text message, and definitely not an invitation for a recruiting visit for the 6-foot-5, 217-pound receiver.
But finally, his phone rang with a call from Oklahoma State’s assistant director of recruiting for offense, Josh Gonzalez.
“Hey, we have a flight booked for Friday for an official visit. Are you down?” Johnson recalls Gonzalez telling him. And Johnson was most certainly down.
Leon Johnson III landed with Oklahoma State football
Aside from one football trip to New York during college, Johnson — who grew up in the state of Washington — had never been further east than Arizona. And while Stillwater is nothing like his hometown of Bothwell, Washington, he felt at home with the Cowboy coaches.Less than 11 months later, Johnson is in position to potentially play a key role for the OSU offense in a highly anticipated Bedlam game against ninth-ranked OU, set for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff Saturday at Boone Pickens Stadium.
As recently as 10 days ago, it seemed Johnson was destined for a season of watching from the sideline. Cowboy coaches saw a lot of potential, but not a lot of polish in the gifted athlete, and had hoped to redshirt him this year.
But a rash of injuries hit, and he found himself not only making his first start, but catching his first pass as a Cowboy, finishing with five grabs for 149 yards in the 45-13 win over Cincinnati last Saturday.
“It’s no secret I wanted to redshirt him,” OSU offensive coordinator Kasey Dunn said. “He’s played really well in practice. He catches the ball, he’s tough, he’ll block you. He’s obviously a monster at 6-foot-5, 220 pounds. He can run.
“But he’s unpolished from the standpoint of receiver skill. Leverages and how to run routes. He won on athletic ability and still did that (against Cincinnati). He wants to polish up his game and I want him to polish up his game.”
But time might not allow for all the polishing Dunn would like to do. Johnson has played in the NCAA limit of four games to retain redshirt status. So if he plays a single snap in any game the rest of the year, his redshirt is burned.
But with De’Zhaun Stribling already out for the season, plus Jaden Bray, Talyn Shettron and Blaine Green having missed last week’s game, the opportunity to redshirt Johnson likely is gone.
So the Cowboys need him to settle into a meaningful role right away.
Leon Johnson III is more than just a tall receiver for OSU
Senior slot receiver Brennan Presley, who stands 9 inches shorter than Johnson, has been impressed by far more than his size.“For as big as he is, he’s really fast,” Presley said. “You get caught off guard by the way he moves for how big he is.
“What he does in practice, catching the big balls and stuff like that, he’s used to it. He relishes in that. Was I surprised he had that many yards in his first game? Maybe, yeah. But I’m not surprised at what he did.”
The connection between Johnson and quarterback Alan Bowman began the day they arrived at Oklahoma State — literally.
“We took our visits here together in January,” Bowman said after Johnson’s breakout performance in last Saturday’s 45-13 win over Cincinnati. “Really, he was the first teammate I knew, before anybody else. We did newcomer lifts together. That core group that came in in January, he’s part of that, and we’ve been really close since then.
“He has extreme body control in the air. Some of those deep passes, he can go up and get it. Being that big, but also having that much body control is really special.”
The football has been the most natural thing for Johnson in his transition from Division III, but there have been a few surprising moments along the way the last 10 months.
George Fox University pulled decent crowds by D-III standards, but when Johnson took the field for the season opener in September, he realized how different it felt.
“It was definitely culture shock a little bit, just to see how many people come to these games,” he said. “It didn’t affect me in any way, but it was like, wow, this is incredible. It kind of blew my mind.”
Johnson also played baseball at George Fox, which as a young athlete he believed was the sport he cared about the most. But as he grew taller, he realized football was the better path for him.
Now, he’s in a completely different situation at a major university fully designed to focus on a football player’s health, performance and skill.
“At George Fox, when it was fall, I didn’t do anything baseball and when it was spring, I didn’t do anything football,” he said. “At my old school, I was able to just use my natural ability. I didn’t really have to focus on my route-running and my feet and stuff. I just was faster and taller than most of the guys.
“So when I got here it was, OK, let’s focus on the fundamentals and the little things I haven’t really gotten coached on before.”
When he first arrived, Johnson immediately began trying to prove himself worthy of the opportunity at the D-I level.
“I thought I had to, but once I was here and started meeting all the guys and actually got comfortable, I realized if you’re here, everybody trusts that you deserve to be here,” he said. “It was something I had to get over myself at first, but they believed in me more than I believed in myself at first.
“Having those guys around me made me comfortable and ready to play.”
