Paul Myerberg

USA TODAY Sports

CALABASAS, Calif. — The far wall in the coaches’ office at Calabasas High School is bare but for three lists written in pink marker, each headed by a number: 2016, 2017 and 2018.

The first contains the names of the players in this spring’s graduating class who signed scholarship offers to play college football. The second list is for juniors, the third for sophomores.

“Inside my phone, you name the school and we have direct contact with the head coach,” said Calabasas coach Casey Clausen. “Alabama is Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin. If it’s Georgia, it’s obviously Kirby Smart and Jim Chaney. Clemson, Coach Swinney. We know all those guys personally. You think your son’s good enough? Let’s call them right now.”

In the backyard of Bieber and Kardashian, football stars abound

The wall provides tangible evidence of one program’s inroads at this growing high school football power in Southern California. To the school’s prospective recruits, this isn’t Calabasas; it’s Calabraska.

College football’s elite — Alabama, Baylor, Southern California, UCLA and countless others — have been drawn to Calabasas to witness its growing collection of top-tier talent, but one has stood out from the pack: Nebraska, which has used connections to the program to turn the school into a veritable pipeline 1,500 miles to the west.

The Cornhuskers landed one Calabasas product, defensive back Marquel Dismuke, in the class of 2016. One 2018 recruit, defensive back Brendan Radley-Hiles, already holds a scholarship offer. But where the program has made its mark is in the current cycle, where at least two and perhaps three of Calabasas’ elite recruits are set to join Nebraska’s recruiting class.

There may be no public school in the nation with a group as impressive as the Calabasas threesome: defensive back Darnay Holmes, a five-star prospect Clausen compared by his coaches to current USC two-way threat Adoree Jackson; quarterback Tristan Gebbia, ranked by most recruiting services as one of the top pro-style passers in the country; and four-star wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson Jr., son of the former USC and NFL star.

“I’m blessed to have been able to play with them, because I probably won’t even notice how amazing they were until they’re playing on the next level, until they’re on ESPN,” said senior defensive lineman Arthur Kaslow, who will join Dartmouth’s football program this fall.

“I wouldn’t even realize who I was sitting next to in the locker room, who I was huddling up with. At the moment, they’re my friends. It’s nothing more than that.”

Gebbia and Johnson have already given their verbal commitments to Nebraska and attended the Cornhuskers spring game Saturday, while Holmes has listed the Cornhuskers among his favorites since first visiting the campus roughly a year ago. The program’s pull stems in large part from an existing relationship between Keyshawn Johnson Sr. and Nebraska coach Mike Riley, who served as USC’s offensive coordinator while Johnson starred as one of the program’s all-time greats at the position.

Calabasas players also have learned much about Nebraska from one of their school's assistant coaches, Bryan Wilson, a former Cornhuskers defensive back.

Johnson’s professional career and ensuing stint in broadcasting has allowed him to arrange and fund trips to college campuses for the school’s 2017 recruits — trips that included stops at many of the nation’s elite, though no school more often than Nebraska.

Johnson “has been awesome,” Clausen said. “We have contacts, he has contacts. He’s just been really, really cool.”

And the Calabraska group continues to pay off in Nebraska’s recruiting efforts. Landing verbal commitments from two Calabasas products — especially Johnson, a nonstop recruiting tool on social media — has opened the door to a number of California products, each drawn to a program that has long made the state a primary focus yet has struggled to reclaim its national perch for more than a decade.

Calabraska has already fed Nebraska two elite prospects, with the potential for a third. But that pipeline might extend to an even greater scale — maybe to Calibraska, should success with Calabasas translate to the entire state.

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