Claiborne dishes on Calabasas wide receiver duo being pursued by ASU

Outgoing Calabasas High School head coach Chris Claiborne will fondly remember his last year with the Coyotes for many reasons, and certainly coaching wide receivers Johnny Wilson and Jermaine Burton would right up there on that list. We caught up with the former All-American USC linebacker and eight-year NFL pro to get his perspective on two of the highest caliber recruits the Sun Devils have been actively recruiting in recent months.

“Both of them have been great,” Claiborne said of this tandem of players. “A lot of high level players are not good people these days and both are very good dudes and very good kids.”

Jonny Wilson, a current Oregon pledge who visited Tempe in early November is a player that Claiborne described as a nightmare matchup for defenses due to his size and overall skillet as a wideout. He said that the Top-100 prospect earlier in his career was relying quite a bit on his athletic ability but once he truly learned all the various nuances of the position, he became an accomplished offensive weapon.

“In the (regular season) Bosco game and the Oaks Christian game where he really took the challenge of really coming out of his shell,” Claiborne recalled, “and just being a dominant force. He went off in those two games, he played hard and he really showed me he was ready to be a D-I guy in those two games. He can be the tight end/wide receiver and I don’t think there’s a difference which position he plays. I think it’s just about how the coaches use him.

"If you flex him out…say he’s going to line up as a Y (receiver) or a tight end and that means that the defense is going to treat him as such. So they have to make the choice, do I put a linebacker out there with him, a safety or do I put a corner out there and then leave a linebacker on an inside guy that’s a finesse or slot? It really becomes a matchup thing, and he gives you that bonus by having that size. In the red zone, you can do that Stanford thing where you can throw him the ball up, box a guy out and see what he’s going to do.

“Johnny’s going to be good. He’s going to get stronger, he’s going to get faster. I think if he can get to Arizona State with the guys they have on offense right now, just the way the Pac-12 is built, being that tall wide receiver on the perimeter - that’s big.”

In Jermaine Burton, a current LSU commit and Top-110 prospect who will wrap up his visit to Tempe today, Claiborne sees a very dynamic playmaker yet one that doesn’t rely on his finesse and brings a lot of grit to the table.

“Jermaine is a straight speed burner,” Claiborne described. “He’s going to stretch the field for you and runs (a 40-time) of 4.43. He’s a physical player, that gets a little chippy and doesn’t take no mess. He’s going to go at you. Catching the ball with the hands was one of the things that I think he didn’t do very well and is doing that a lot better now. Everybody wants the ball to hit them in the chest but in order to really help your quarterback you’ve got to be able to use your length and attack the ball from a distance.

“It was interesting having this little group of wide receivers. Johnny and Jermaine are best of friends so I honestly could see them going to school together.”

Claiborne who was the defensive coordinator at Long Beach Poly during the 2016-17 seasons and is naturally very familiar with current ASU linebackers’ coach. Antonio Pierce, who was the head coach at that high school during that period. Claiborne feels that both Pierce and ASU’s new wide receivers coach, Prentice Gill, bring a lot of recruiting prowess to the fertile recruiting grounds of Southern California.

“The thing about AP is like whatever he sets his mind to doing, whatever plan he sets, he gets it done,” Claiborne explained. “I learned that from him when I wanted to do something, and I wanted to make a move to doing something. I just try to kind of pattern my mind after what he did. He’s a great recruiter, and so is Prentice Gill. They are both Southern California guys that have been around a long time.

“ASU is putting together something special over there right now. They really are…Everybody better watch out. ASU’s got to hold on to this growth because you don’t get to find this type of pedigree around very often.”

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Jesse Morrison contributed to this article