Gardena, (Calif). Serra wide receiver Lavon (LV) Bunkley-Shelton has been blessed with an abundance of God-given talent but as Cavaliers Head Coach Scott Altenberg describes ASU’s incoming freshman is someone who has never been shy to put in the work necessary to maximize his abilities which has helped become a coveted recruit in Pac-12 country, and publicly today on of the crown jewels of ASU’s 2020 recruiting class.
“LV is someone I would call a route winner,” Altenberg said. “He’s one of those guys that is always able to get open because he’s so creative. He’s the guy you go to if you need to throw for a first down. He’s the guy that’s going to make the big play. He’s always been like that. He’s the type of receiver every team needs.
“Even though he’s a very good athlete, a lot of his success has been because he has worked his butt off. That really bodes well when you go to college. At the next level, everyone is as big and as fast as you are so you will need that work ethic and he has always had that. He’s a grinder, he’s always in the weight room. I've never seen him relax a lot – he’s always moving around. He’s the football equivalent of a gym rat.”
“Coach Herm told us that he sees me as a slot receiver,” Bunkley-Shelton said in a previous interview regarding the official visit he and his family took to Tempe, “and that I have a chance to start as a freshman. But he told me that nothing is given and that I have to earn it.
“If you put anything on the table for me – I will take it.”
As a junior Bunkley-Shelton broke now-NFL wide receiver Robert Woods' Serra school record for most receptions, hauling in 81 catches in a single season, to along with his 1,012 yards and three touchdowns. This past year those numbers in ten games played dropped to 51 receptions for 630 yards and the same number of scores as 2018. The Cavaliers posted a 6-5 mark in their 2019 campaign.
“It was just the way the season and the way it went,” Altenberg explained. “Teams were playing us differently. The year before we went four-wide and threw all the time. This year we had a better running game, so even though LV was on the field all the time we didn’t throw it as much and ran the ball a lot more.”
“I’m a man (coverage) beater and a zone beater,” Bunkley-Shelton said. “I know how to get in and out of my breaks and in and out of the zones. I know I’m not the tallest or fastest receiver or whatever, but I know how to get open and that is what separates me from everyone else."
There is one trait in specific, which is no coincidence tied into physical maturity, that Altenberg noticed the biggest improvement in his receiver’s skills throughout the year.
“His ability to block,” Altenberg noted. “Early on he wasn’t a committed blocker. That’s something a lot of young guys struggle with. His understanding of the game, especially with his route running, that’s something he grew better in a big way.”
ASU linebacker’s coach Antonio Pierce was Bunkley-Shelton’s main recruiter on behalf of the Sun Devils, and Altenberg who has known Pierce quite well from the time he was coaching at Long Beach Poly, wasn’t surprised how effective he was in recruiting Serra star wide receiver.
“Antonio came in and got (former Serra linebacker and ASU sophomore) Merlin Robertson,” Altenberg recalled. “He always knew our roster very well. The thing about Antonio is that he doesn’t rely on the rankings when he recruits players. He understands whose ratings and stats are real, and whose are not, because he coached in Southern California. He knows what to look for and that has made it really easy for him to recruit our area.
“He knows what he will get when he recruits a kid from this area, because he’ll watch film and know that the team the recruit is playing against is really good, for example. So, he can figure that out, and a lot of the other recruiters from out state really just don’t know. When (ASU’s wide receivers’ coach) Prentice Gill was at Oregon he was recruiting LV, so it helps that he (Gill) will be coaching him at ASU. That was a good hire for them.”
Altenberg said that it’s not as if ASU didn’t try and recruit Southern California under previous regimes, yet he feels that the Sun Devil staff under Herm Edwards has been more diligent and frankly hard to miss their presence in that region.
“These coaches are really hitting the streets,” Altenberg remarked. “They definitely made Southern California a target area where they want to spend a lot of time recruiting. It’s never been. like this before with Arizona State. Now they just opened up shop in L.A. and are here to stay.
“I’m sure that they recruit other places, but is sure feels like that they are here in Southern California a lot.”
Much has been said and written about the impact ASU signal caller Jayden Daniels, who has rewritten a few school records during his freshman year in Tempe, can have on recruiting and in the past Bunkley-Shelton was crystal clear on that how would factor in his commitment.
“I know ASU puts their best players on the field, and I feel I can be that best player” Bunkley-Shelton remarked. “Jayden Daniels and I played on the same Ground Zero 7x7 team in his last year. He really spreads the ball a lot and doesn’t target just one player and he can really run the ball. I’m not surprised to see the success he had at Arizona State but I’m real proud of him and happy for him.
“If I came to Arizona State, he would be a big part of my decision.”
Case in point, Bunkley-Shelton inked his name with the Sun Devils in the December signing period and made his intentions known to all today on arguably the biggest high school all-star game stage there is. The four-star wide receiver will graduate Serra in the spring is scheduled to arrive in Tempe in the summer.
Bunkley-Shelton is ASU’s 18th known commit and 12th pledge from the state of California
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