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Jenkins Becomes Ohio State's Ninth Commitment
By Bucknuts.com Staff
Date: Aug 5, 2004
Cornerback Malcolm Jenkins of Piscataway, New Jersey had a tough college choice to make between Ohio State, Rutgers and Virginia Tech, but the Buckeyes won in the end. We caught up with Jenkins today to learn more about his decision.
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The Buckeyes received another outstanding addition to their 2005 recruiting class today as cornerback <!--Default NodeId For Malcolm Jenkins is 1200861,2004-->
Malcolm Jenkins of Piscataway, New Jersey made it known that he had decided to attend <!--Default For Ohio State is to ignore-->Ohio State.
Jenkins' decision came down to <!--Default For Ohio is to ignore-->Ohio State, <!--Default For Virginia Tech is to ignore-->Virginia Tech, and <!--Default For Rutgers is to ignore-->Rutgers. In the end, Rutgers was tough to turn down, but the Buckeye coaching staff was a big factor in his decision.
"Basically, everything was a dead lock until I looked at the coaching staffs and what coaching staff I feel comfortable with the most, and it was Ohio State," he said.
The Ohio State atmosphere also played a part in his choice.
"There weren't a lot of negatives between the schools," he said. "All of them academically had what I want, so it was basically about the team and the atmosphere."
Ohio State first caught Jenkins' attention with the recruiting letters that they sent to him, and then Jenkins (6-0 1/2, 185, 4.43) in turn caught the attention of the OSU staff at the four-day camp session in June.
"I guess I was on their mailing list, and when I started getting letters from them, I really started liking it and I wanted to look into it more," Jenkins said. "I got together with my parents, and I asked them if I could attend the camp so I could try to get a scholarship and impress the coaches. That all worked out how I wanted it to."
Despite being one of thousands of campers, Jenkins was able to stand out from the crowd at camp with a stellar performance.
"I was just doing drills, and the DBs coach (<!--Default NodeId For Mel Tucker is 1192464,2004-->
Mel Tucker) came up to me and was like, 'You do these real, real smooth,'" Jenkins said. "Then later on, we were doing one-on-ones, and they had me going against the best receivers there, and the coaches were real impressed. Right there, he was like 'Oh, we gotta get you here!'"
Jenkins is a versatile player who was instrumental in Piscataway's state championship run last season, their second straight title.
"I started both ways at corner and receiver," he said. "I had eight interceptions, I think 26 solo tackles and four breakups."
Jenkins projects as a corner at Ohio State.
"They primarily want me to play corner," he said. "I think if they wanted me to play something else, they would let me, but most likely I would be coming back to corner anyway."
Malcolm Jenkins is the ninth commitment for the OSU recruiting class of 2005. He plans on majoring in business at Ohio State. Keep posted to Bucknuts.com in the coming days for details on how you can hear Malcolm talk about his commitment on the Bucknuts Radio Hour.
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