CLAUSEN NOT FAZED BY THE HYPE.

Byline: VINCENT BONSIGNORE

Jimmy Clausen knows all about the warning to be careful what you wish for.

The danger is you might get it, only to find out it wasn't anything you expected at all.

Jimmy Clausen doesn't exactly heed the warning. He laughs at it.

``I'm having the time of my life,'' Clausen said.

And why shouldn't he?

The reigning king of the high school quarterbacks enters his junior year at Oaks Christian of Westlake Village firmly entrenched as the top prep prospect in the country.

Not the top junior prospect. The top prospect. Period.

And that's exactly what Clausen dreamed of being all those afternoons he was scratching at the heels of older brothers Casey and Ricky as they played quarterback at Alemany of Mission Hills and Taft of Woodland Hills before moving on to the University of Tennessee.

Back then, his two older brothers pointed at little Jimmy and said: ``Forget about us, he's the one you need to keep your eye on.''

Little did they know Jimmy Clausen would emerge as perhaps the most heralded quarterback of his generation, a prospect one national magazine dubbed the LeBron James of high school football shortly after he threw his first varsity pass.

Not that everyone waited that long before anointing Clausen the next great prospect.

``This is a kid people have been touting since the eighth grade, and in all my years of doing this, I'm not sure I ever remember someone getting attention that early,'' said Greg Biggins, the recruiting coordinator at Student Sports magazine. ``Most guys you first start hearing about as sophomores, or at the earliest as ninth-graders. But we started hearing about Jimmy long before that.''

And who could have predicted Clausen's high school coach would spend the summer before Clausen's junior year sifting through a stack of letters from college coaches informing him they'll soon be extending scholarship offers to the quarterback.

College coaches aren't yet allowed to officially offer Clausen a scholarship, but that hasn't stopped more than 23 of them from writing Oaks Christian coach Bill Redell to say they're prepared to do just that as soon as they're able to.

``The letters pretty much start all the same,'' Redell said. ``It is our intention to offer Jimmy Clausen a full scholarship.''

The return addresses are a Who's Who of college football: USC, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida State . Their early interest is a precursor to a wild recruiting battle that figures to spill over into the summer of 2006, and maybe beyond.

Despite the inevitable clamor of college coaches pressuring Clausen into a commitment and Internet fans flooding Web sites with news of a decision, Clausen isn't in any rush to accommodate anyone.

``Right now I'm just focused on working hard to be the best I can be and establishing Oaks Christian as one of the best high school football teams in the county.'' Clausen said.

The attention given Clausen - it includes national magazine spreads and profiles on ESPN - might seem a bit much, except Clausen backs it all up with on-field production.

When a sophomore quarterback bursts onto the scene by throwing for 3,365 yards and 58 touchdowns while leading his team to a 14-0 record and a Southern Section championship, people tend to take notice.

``And he's done that playing under a spotlight no young player has ever had to perform under,'' Biggins said. ``And, to me, that might be the thing that stands out most about him. When people have been talking about you since the eighth grade by hyping you up in magazines and television, and you go out there and deal with that pressure by doing what he did, that tells me a lot. It's pretty incredible.''

And to think, Redell gets to enjoy two more years of production like that. Interestingly, Redell always was known for his grind-it-out running game when he coached at Crespi of Encino and St. Francis of La Canada Flintridge all those years. But he scrapped all that the first time he saw Clausen throw an out pattern.

It didn't matter that Redell had spectacular running backs Aaron Ware (now at UCLA) and Marc Tyler, a junior and one of the top prospects in the country, to build a running game around. One look at Clausen, and Redell was immediately converted to the passing game.

``He can throw the out pass and the long pass - he can zip it in there, but he's also got great touch,'' Redell said. ``And this summer he's even better than he was last year.''

Best of all, Clausen has the intangibles. Growing up around older brothers Casey - who started four years at Tennessee - and Jimmy, who transferred to Tennessee two years ago from LSU, Clausen was exposed to big-time quarterbacking at an early age.

That might explain the precise footwork and the extraordinarily quick throwing release, not to mention the poise he displays at an such an early stage.

``That was huge to my development, and I'm thankful every day of that,'' Clausen said. ``And it goes beyond the actual playing. I look at my brothers, and they've had their ups and downs over their careers, and they tell me all the time it's not always going to be a great day. You're going to struggle, you're going to have tough times. The key is keeping an even keel, and that's what I try to do.''

He does it well.

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Oaks Christian quarterback Jimmy Clausen is considered the nation's top prep football prospect.

Matt Simmons/Special to the Daily News