BEREA, Ohio -- Hue Jackson sent a message loud and clear to his top pick Corey Coleman Friday that this isn't Baylor anymore and that it's time to put his big-boy conditioning pants on.

"He's got to get in shape,'' Jackson said, zinging it right at Coleman like a Cody Kessler fastball. "He's explosive and he can catch the ball. He's extremely talented and gifted. (But) he's one of the guys that has to get in shape. He saw himself, 'whoa, this is different.' And it is. But we'll get him to where he needs to be.''

Even though Coleman realized it himself, Jackson drove the point home with some in-practice ribbing.

"Oh, yes, I did,'' Jackson said. "I will not do that (share). But I did. He understands where he needs to be and I'm excited about him. He gets it. It'd be different if I didn't think a young man gets it, he does. And he knows there's work to do. That's what this is all about. That's why they call us coaches. We've got to take these guys and mold them into our culture and to our idea of being football players for the Cleveland browns and we'll get them there.''

In fact, the first thing Jackson noticed about his entire rookie class -- which includes 14 draft picks and 10 undrafted rookies -- is that they have to step up their conditioning game. But he stressed Coleman hasn't gotten lazy since the end of his wildly productive college season -- complete with a nation-high 20 touchdown catches.

"It's different in the National Football League,'' Jackson said. "Receivers have to be able to run all day long. The guy made it through practice and he made some plays and catches and all that stuff. But at the same time, there's a level of what it should it look like for me.

"So maybe this is a little pleasing of me that he needs to get better from a conditioning standpoint to be able to do it for as long as I know that a receiver has to do it and the way our receivers do it now.''

Next month, Coleman will compete in fullsquad minicamp with veterans such as Andrew Hawkins, Terrelle Pryor, Brian Hartline and Taylor Gabriel, who have all been schooled for the past month in the Jackson Way of working their tails off.

"In order for him to walk in that room to compete with those guys, he's got to get into great shape,'' said Jackson. "It's not talent at all. It's getting in shape, and that's OK 'cause we'll get him there very quickly."

Here's #Browns Cody Kessler throwing to first-round pick Corey Coleman in rookie camp pic.twitter.com/r5P1UciIK1 — Mary Kay Cabot (@MaryKayCabot) May 13, 2016

Jackson said it's not unusual for rookies to be caught off guard by the pace of a practice, especially receivers.

"These guys flew in, some of them got in late,'' he said. "It's a different sleeping environment. It's a new environment for them. So when I say about getting in shape, I'm not putting him down by any stretch of the imagination. Trust me. This whole group needs to get in better shape.

"I just pointed this out because the guy's very talented and if anything his eyes really opened about where he needs to get to very fast, and I think he's very excited to do it because he knows what it's going to take to play up here.''

He stressed, "this is not a negative. This is something that I anticipated in some areas, and we'll get these guys there because we have one of the best strength staffs that there are in football."

Jackson doesn't believe that coming up the learning curve from the simplistic Baylor spread offense will be a problem for Coleman (5-11, 185). Coleman made plenty of catches Friday from Kessler and tryout quarterback Ricky Stanzi, a native of Mentor, Ohio.

"I don't see that because he's so athletic,'' Jackson said. "He has the ability to sink his hips and get in out of breaks and obviously he's very talented. I know that's what everbody else was concerned about but I don't think that's what we're concerned about. We have the best receiver coach in football (in Al Saunders) and we'll get him to where he needs to be and the talent will just continue to show itself.''

Jackson wasn't alarmed that Coleman and many of the others weren't in practice shape coming off the pre-draft process.

"They haven't been around us, so I don't think anybody would really understand,'' he said. "I don't think our veteran players understood it until they went through it. The difference with this group is we put them on the field first, whereas our other guys had two weeks for them to understand where we were headed before they started.'

Throughout the fast-paced two-hour session, Jackson envisioned what's to come with his first Browns draft class. Even though they were gassed at times, they looked big, athletic and fast.

"These guys, they will get acclimated really quickly,'' he said. "The fun part for me was watching where they were today and knowing where they could be a week or two weeks from now.''

He said all four of the rookie receivers -- not just Coleman -- discovered they have take it up a notch. He's likely just singling out Coleman because he's the top pick.



"I think they all understand, 'boy, we've got some catching up to do to even have a chance to compete with the varsity guys' because those guys can run all day right now and these guys have to get to that point,'' said Jackson.

Jackson is confident that Saunders will whip the boys into shape in a hurry.

"He knows how to take guys from step A all the way to step Z and he's the best I've ever been around,'' said Jackson. "So I'm not worried about where these young guys are right now. Trust me when I tell you, when we get where we need to be, these guys will be exactly how we want them to be when it's time for them to be that way.''