40 best Ohio State football players this century, ranked

Best Ohio State football players this century 9. Malcolm Jenkins – Defensive Back 2005-08

Malcolm Jenkins is another player in the secondary who played right away. During his freshman season, Jenkins played the nickelback position, and he posted 37 tackles. It was a nice start, but it was just that. A start. The next season of his college career, Jenkins was amazing in the secondary.

In 2006, Jenkins moved to an official starting cornerback position, and he excelled right away on the outside. He had 55 tackles, so it shows opposing quarterbacks were still targeting him, but he would stop the big play. He also had four interceptions and returned them a total of 99 yards. It was one of his three consensus All-Big Ten selections at cornerback. He didn’t get consideration for the All-American until his junior year.

Jenkins matched his four interceptions from his sophomore year in his junior year, and this time he made it to the second-team All-American. He added five tackles for loss, and one of his interceptions was returned for a touchdown. It became more and more obviously teams shouldn’t throw to his side of the field.

That became glaring during his senior season. Jenkins’s stats look less because people stopped giving him a chance to make a play. He only had three interceptions, but that didn’t stop him from winning the Thorpe Award and being named a first-team All-American. He also ended up getting a sack against Michigan State on a cornerback blitz. He was especially aggressive that game, also putting up 1.5 tackles for loss. Jenkins was great from start to finish in Columbus which is why he is in the top ten.