receiver

There are so many boys, girls, men and women with the name Rex living in Southern California that they could form their own football team.

“We have like 28 cousins,” said San Clemente High strong safety/receiver Jaxson Rex.

Every Christmas, the Rex adults and their children, ranging in age from 4 to 28, come together but the family football games have been put on hold.

“We don’t play football anymore because everyone will get hurt and the dads try too hard,” Jaxson said.

There were eight Rex siblings who grew up first in Hawaii, then Bellflower. All are married. The most famous is Bryon, who was an All-American tight end at Brigham Young and is Jaxson’s uncle. Byron’s son, Isaac, played tight end at San Clemente and BYU, and another son, Preston, is a senior running back at BYU.

Jaxson will follow the family tradition of playing at Brigham Young, committing during the summer despite a strong bid by UCLA’s new coaching staff to pull him away. “I loved how UCLA’s new coaching staff is,” he said.

Jaxson is so talented there isn’t a position he can’t play in emergency except on the line. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound senior was recruited by several schools to be a receiver but sees himself as a strong safety.

“What I’ve enjoyed is the physicality in football,” he said. “I grew up playing basketball and football and realized I wasn’t going to be 7-foot tall, so I tried to focus on football once I hit eighth grade.”

A motivational moment came when he was in sixth grade and moved from Long Beach to San Clemente. He ended up playing against seventh- and eight-graders, which meant he hardly played.

“I never want to be not on the field,” he told himself.

Jaxson doesn’t leave the field for San Clemente (2-0), returning punts and kickoffs besides catching passes and making tackles and interceptions on defense. If you like someone who creates turnovers, that’s Jaxson. He’s always trying to take the ball away from running backs, quarterbacks and receivers.

Last season he had five interceptions, two returned for touchdowns, and 68 tackles. He also caught 10 touchdown passes. He averaged close to 30 yards on kickoff returns. He had 12 solo tackles in the Southern Section Division 2 final loss to Los Alamitos.

“He does everything and then some,” coach Jaime Ortiz said. “He has a high football IQ. He’s tenacious.”

Former NFL tight end Dennis Pitta, an assistant coach with the Tritons, said, “He’s as hard of a worker and as good as an athlete you could ask for.”

Jaxson calls living in San Clemente “paradise.”

“We always have an ocean breeze, not too hot, not too cold,” he said. “I can always work out any time of the day.”

The end of the summer practices for San Clemente involves jogging from campus 1.8 miles to the San Clemente Pier.

“Everyone is honking their horn while we’re going,” Jaxson said.

Imagine if 28 Rex cousins were participating. The noise would be so loud the town might think a parade was taking place.

Jaxson has an 11-year-old brother learning to play safety.

As long as players named Rex keep coming through San Clemente, the football team will be more than fine.

Third in a series of stories profiling top high school football players by position. Today, Austin Miller, Bellflower receiver.

Dozens of college football recruiters traveling in their rental cars to powerhouse St. John Bosco have learned there’s a new must-stop place on the way to Bellflower.

“Don’t come through Bellflower and not come through Bellflower,” is the motto of Bellflower High, where the emergence of 6-foot-5, 200-pound sophomore receiver Austin Miller is proving to be as attractive as a stop at In-N-Out.

“Bosco is a great program, but we don’t take a backseat to anyone,” said the 15-year-old Austin , whose father, Keith, is the head coach. “We’re here to put Bellflower on the map.”

Videographers covering Bellflower games know Austin is capable of dong something spectacular at any moment because of his speed, size, athleticism and jumping ability. He caught 35 passes for 609 yards and eight touchdowns as a freshman. He rushed for 885 yards and 13 touchdowns. He had four sacks and 35 tackles.

Imagine the highlight films coming this season with added strength and a maturing body.

He’s been fed hundreds of footballs from a Jugs machine to develop hands that don’t drop passes. He has the size and physicality of a tight end, which creates mismatches with smaller cornerbacks. He has no sympathy.

“As a receiver being bigger than everybody, you play to your advantage,” he said.

Because he has been playing multiple sports since he was young, versatility is his superpower, allowing him to catch passes, block, sack quarterbacks from the edge or play any position his father needs him to play.

Just hearing him describe the importance of blocking as a receiver shows the effect having a coach as a father has had on him.

“My dad taught me staying low, driving through your hips and making sure you block for your teammates like they block for you,” he said. “For receivers, sometimes you watch the play instead of doing your job. The biggest thing is putting your man in the dirt. Being bigger receiver, taking contact and delivering contact is a big thing for me.”

Austin is one of those rare teenagers who looks and acts like someone destined to reach the highest level possible because of his physical gifts and mental outlook. He committed to Ohio State in June even though he has three seasons left of high school football. His goals are high, and he feels the Buckeyes are the perfect landing place to fulfill his dreams.

Austin Miller, a 15-year-old sophomore receiver, is helping bring attention to Bellflower’s football program.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

His parents wanted nothing to do with the flavor of the month, holdbacks. It has become so common that most assume a top freshman or sophomore are holdbacks, which means repeating a grade or two to look for a competitive advantage in high school.

Austin welcomes competition of any and all ages, seeing it as a worthy challenge and a path that will only make him better. He certainly more than held his own as a 14-year-old playing against some 19-year-olds.

To understand his journey, you have to go back years and visualize the scene from his days as an 11-year-old.

“We’d wake up, go to football practice, go to basketball practice, go to baseball practice, then work out more,” he said.

Keith Miller wanted the chance to become a head coach after being an assistant to his brother, Jason, who’s coached at Bellflower, Verbum Dei and Leuzinger among his stops. With Austin and his talented friends serving as the early believers, Miller is trying to build a program from the ground up.

“The college coaches say they respect what we are doing,” Austin said. “We don’t take a back seat to any school.”

There’s also a little bit of pride in father and son proving that talent isn’t just found at top private schools. When a public school kid gains similar attention, it makes him a community hero for life.

Austin is certainly headed on that path. He’s embraced the idea that you can be the youngest on a field and still be one of the best through hard work, dedication, preparation and a belief in yourself.

Friday: Luke Gazzaniga, Santa Margarita tight end.

Receivers to watch

Nico Bland, Orange Lutheran, 6-1, 185, Sr.: Arizona State commit led Lancers with 57 catches

Charles Davis, Westlake, 6-5, 205, Sr.: Cal commit has size and speed

Quentin Hale, Corona Centennial, 6-3, 195, Sr.: USC commit joins a prolific offensive attack

Kingston Celifie, Calabasas, 6-0, 170, Sr.: UCLA commit is even faster after catching nine TDs last season

Jack Junker, Mission Viejo, 5-10, 180, Sr.: San Jose State commit might have best hands in the Southland

Hayden Koo, Tustin, 6-1, 170, Jr.: Has size, speed and work ethic to be standout

Austin Miller, Bellflower, 6-5, 200, So.: Committed to Ohio State after just one high school season

DJ Tubbs, St. John Bosco, 5-10, 175, Jr.: Can be this season’s Trent Mosley by making big plays

Eli Woodard, Chaparral, 6-0, 180, Sr.: Miami commit was the object of big recruiting battle all summer

Blake Wong, Norco, 6-2, 170, Sr.: Brigham Young commit caught 14 passes for 219 yards, three TDs vs. Centennial

SAN DIEGO — High on the to-do list for the Chargers offense is juicing up the ground game, a pressing priority for a franchise whose last 1,000-yard rusher was Melvin Gordon in 2017.

Max McCaffrey is the team’s new running backs coach, and his last name should be familiar. His younger brother is Christian McCaffrey, All-Pro running back for the San Francisco 49ers and reigning comeback player of the year. Their father is longtime NFL receiver Ed McCaffrey, a favorite target of John Elway in Denver.

So Max knows his stuff about building a running attack, even though he was a receiver at Duke and had only fleeting stints with five NFL franchises, more often on the practice squads than the active rosters.

Chargers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel noted with a half-smile that because Max is “definitely not the most athletic in his family,” his work ethic is “astronomically higher” than most.

Max , 32, chuckled Wednesday when informed of that wisecrack, conceding that he’s got some pretty stiff competition in his family. His dad has three Super Bowl rings — one with San Francisco, two with Denver — and mom, Lisa, was a standout soccer player at Stanford. In addition to Christian, 30, Max has brothers Dylan, 27, a former quarterback at Michigan and Northern Colorado; and Luke, a receiver and return specialist for the Washington Commanders.

They might not be quite as prominent as the Mannings or Kelces, but when it comes to football’s royal families, the McCaffreys are in the conversation.

Chargers running backs coach Max McCaffrey, left, works with running back Keaton Mitchell at training camp in El Segundo on Aug. 1.

(Los Angeles Chargers)

“I love my brothers,” Max said. “I’ll do anything for them, and I just want to see them succeed and chase what they’re passionate about.”

That certainly doesn’t quell his competitive nature, however, and he’ll have more than one chance in his current role to see brother Christian up close. The Chargers and 49ers will hold a joint practice at the Bolt on Aug. 18, and the teams will meet again in a Thursday night game on Dec. 17 at SoFi Stadium.

“My brother’s been my best friend and one of my biggest mentors my entire life,” Christian told The Times Wednesday. “We’re always bouncing ideas off each other. Obviously, he played receiver, but he has such a massive knowledge for football in general. He’s been a coordinator. He’s coached different position groups. Now that he’s got the running back job, it’s so fun just bouncing ideas off of each other.

“I never think I have it all figured out, so getting tips from him feels very familiar.”

Likewise, Max said that while Christian doesn’t share trade secrets with him, he does tap into the running back know-how of his younger brother, collecting tidbits on how best to train and prepare players for the rigorous job.

The eldest McCaffrey son called the 49ers star “the most intentional person I know.”

“He wakes up with a purpose,” Max said. “His day is planned from the second he wakes up to the minute he goes to sleep.”

That’s the kind of laser focus that can help a young running back such as Omarion Hampton, selected 22nd overall by the Chargers in the 2025 draft.

Ed McCaffrey was head coach at Northern Colorado from 2020-22 and had Max on his staff all three seasons, first as receivers coach, then as offensive coordinator for the final two seasons.

“I think it’s tremendous,” Ed said of his son’s play-calling experience. “It’s tremendous for the whole process because it allows you to set your vision as to how much you need to own at the NFL level running an offense.

“He got to really invest into the details across all positions, getting a firm, tangible example of what he needs from position coaches. So to be prepared to be a position coach, I think it directly helped him in that process.”

When McDaniel was head coach of the Miami Dolphins, he brought on Max as an offensive assistant from 2023-25. When McDaniel got the Chargers job, he brought Max with him, giving him a key position to oversee.

Chargers running backs coach Max McCaffrey, working with running back Kimani Vidal in offseason workouts in May, said, “I love my brothers. I’ll do anything for them, and I just want to see them succeed and chase what they’re passionate about.”

(Los Angeles Chargers)

Joked McDaniel: “For fantasy owners out there, if you’re not liking your output, you have Max to blame.”

Max got his name from a since-closed restaurant at the Stanford mall called Max’s Opera Cafe, where Ed and Lisa had their first date.

Since, he has worked hard to make a name for himself, and the spotlight is only growing.

A year after racking up more miles than any team in the NFL, the Chargers are homebodies.

For the first time in their 10 seasons in Los Angeles, they will open with back-to-back games on their home field — against Arizona and Las Vegas.

What’s more, one of their away games will be at SoFi Stadium, against the host Rams on Nov. 1.

Who knows if less time in an airplane will make a difference, but a franchise that hasn’t won a postseason game since the 2018 season will look for anything to change that trajectory.

It’s worth noting that Jim Harbaugh got his team to the playoffs in each of his first two seasons, and he has a history of turning around franchises in college football and the pros.

And, as they’ll show in training camp, the 2026 Chargers have made some significant changes.

Here are five things to watch in training camp:

Justin time

Chargers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel speaks at a news conference on June 17.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

It’s the seventh season for Justin Herbert, and the star quarterback is on his fifth offensive coordinator. Will former Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel be the play-designing architect to push him over the top and get him that elusive first playoff victory?

Already, McDaniel has done some tinkering and fine-tuning, tweaking Herbert’s footwork out of the shotgun formation to allow him to get the ball out of his hands a fraction of a second earlier. That should allow his receivers more time to turn up the field and bump up their yards-after-catch numbers.

The ball is coming out even before the receivers have turned their heads for it, and McDaniel has warned them the ball could hit them in the face if they’re not ready. It’s a way to neutralize the pass rush, too.

“If you’re getting the ball out quickly, there’s really nothing they can do about it,” Herbert said of defenders. “You’ve got to find a way to slow them down, and I think that’s just [McDaniel’s] way of taking them out of the game.”

Herbert has absorbed a lot of hits over the years, and he has leaned heavily on his arm strength too.

“In years past, you rely on your arm strength to put the ball exactly where you need to,” he said, “instead of trusting it and just throwing it to a spot and letting them go and get it.”

Next man up

Chargers defensive coordintor Chris O’Leary speaks at a news conference on June 17.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Jesse Minter did such a solid job as defensive coordinator of the Chargers that he was hired as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens. So in steps his protege, Chris O’Leary, who coached under him at Georgia State and Notre Dame before spending the 2024 season coaching Chargers safeties. Then it was off to Western Michigan for O’Leary last season, where he was defensive coordinator — a year of experience in that job before returning to replace the departing Minter for the Chargers.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That’s expected to be the philosophy of O’Leary, who tutored his Western Michigan players by showing them tapes of the Chargers.

That said, he’s probably not going to follow Minter to the letter. He likely will have the same coverage schemes and rely just as much on All-Pro safety Derwin James, but his defenses might blitz more than Minter’s (the Chargers were near the bottom of the league in that category in 2026) and will look to turn first-round pick Akheem Mesidor into a pass-rushing star.

Odafe Oweh, acquired during the 2025 season in a trade with Baltimore, will play for the Washington Commanders this season. Mesidor, a linebacker who played collegiately at West Virginia and Miami, was selected 22nd overall.

It’s all on the line

Chargers offensive tackle Joe Alt participates in a drill at minicamp in June.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The Chargers have huge draft capital invested in their offensive line — including spending first-round picks on bookend tackles Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt — and that was supposed to be a strength of the team last season. That went off the rails early, however, with the team losing Slater to a season-ending injury in training camp and Alt soon after the season started.

The line wound up being a disaster with a reshuffled cast virtually every week. One of the few fixtures was center Bradley Bozeman, who Pro Football Focus rated 40th out of 40 players who qualified at that position. He retired after the season.

The Chargers have a new center in Tyler Biadasz, who was released by the Commanders in a cost-cutting move, and Alt (ankle) and Slater (knee) are cleared and ready to go. If this unit can stay healthy, it will look a lot different — and a lot better — than the 2025 version.

Beginning of the ends

Chargers tight end David Njoku speaks during a news conference on May 19.

(William Liang / Associated Press)

In the not-too-distant past, the Chargers had one of the NFL’s premier tight ends in Antonio Gates, enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame last summer. Since, the team has had more downs than ups at the position, although it saw some flashes last season from rookie Oronde Gadsden II, a talented pass catcher.

The Chargers got another infusion of promising tight ends in the offseason, acquiring free agents David Njoku and Charlie Kolar, both of whom thrived elsewhere.

Njoku was a gifted receiver and blocker in Cleveland, catching 81 balls and scoring six touchdowns in 2023. His numbers dropped off last season, though, as the Browns cycled through five different quarterbacks.

Kolar was more blocker than receiver in his four years with the Ravens, and he did that very well. When he did see passes thrown his way, he did a good job of reeling those in.

Oh my, Omarion

Chargers running back Omarion Hampton speaks at a news conference during minicamp on June 17.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The rookie grade for running back Omarion Hampton? Incomplete. The 2025 first-round pick from North Carolina got off to a good start, including a 128-yard rushing performance at the New York Giants in Week 4, before sustaining a fractured ankle the following week that sidelined him for two months.

In his sophomore season, he should be running behind a far better line and playing for an offensive coordinator with a history of coaching running backs to breakout seasons. Look what De’Von Achane did under McDaniel in Miami, where he ran for 1,350 yards and caught 67 passes last season.

If Hampton can come close to that, he’ll be a popular fantasy pickup.