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Arizona Football Recruiting: Makell Esteen and Brandon Jones face off in Los Angeles

By Shereen Rayan

3 Sep 1993: Members of Los Angeles Baptist High School walk to the field during football practice in North Hills, California.
3 Sep 1993: Members of Los Angeles Baptist High School walk to the field during football practice in North Hills, California. /
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Lawndale High School’s Makell Esteen and Narbonne High School’s Brandon Jones, both Arizona Football recruits with offers, faced off in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles City division of the CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) is a gritty, hard-hitting, and extremely competitive division where dreams and NFL Players are born. Both Class of 2020 corner backs Brandon Jones (four stars) and Makell Esteen (three stars) fits the bill.

A few years ago, Hawking High School Football in Los Angeles was churning out five-star talent. Each star player had 20-30 offers from prestigious college football programs including Tennessee, Alabama, USC, and more. Greg Johnson, a former Arizona commit who flipped to USC, just caught his first interception for USC against Colorado on Saturday.

Johnson was a mentor for Class of 2020 cornerback Brandon Jones (5-foot10 165 lbs), then a ninth-grader who played with Johnson on the Varsity team. That’s when we first met Brandon, who received an Arizona offer later that season.

Since then, Jones has received 19 other offers, with ASU, Michigan, and Stanford pursuing him the most as he starts deciding where he will commit. Jones also has offers from USC and UCLA as well as Oregon State, Cal, and Nebraska. We were surprised to not hear Arizona as one of the schools heavily pursuing Jones, who shined brightly in Narbonne’s win over Lawndale a couple of weeks ago.

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On the opposite side of the ball was another Cornerback who also plays Safety/Wide Receiver, Class of 2020 Makell Esteen. Esteen also played the entire game. Esteen (6-foot1 170 lbs) wants to play in the Pac-12, and that is realistic because he has offers from Arizona, ASU, Washington, Oregon, and USC.

Zona Zealots live Tweeted this game a few weeks ago and got a huge response. Something like 500 fans tuned in to watch these two Arizona offered players do their thing.

Esteen and Jones went up against each other most of the game. The ball somehow seemed to be passed to the other side of the field. Both coaches knew these two can defend and catch balls. What seems to separate players on the football field at times is stamina. That is not a problem for either of these ball players, both don’t seem to run out of steam. Narbonne was ahead for most the game, but Lawndale made a run for it. Lawndale ended up losing this one which was an away game for them. But we couldn’t resist catching up with these dynamic players who are stars in the LA City division of the CIF.

Here are some highlights and our interviews after the game.

Next. More on Arizona Football from ZZ. dark

Where ever these two land in the Pac-12, their teams will be very happy. Zona Zealots will hopefully be at their announcement events, so stay tuned.

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