Last Friday and Saturday the Florida Gators hosted several prospects from the Montgomery, Alabama area, which is traditionally a hot bed for programs around the southeast to recruit.
2018 offensive lineman Marcus “Tank” Jenkins (6-3, 335, Montgomery, AL Park Crossing) was one of those prospects that was in Gainesville and he walked away from the trip speaking highly of the Florida Gators Recruiting efforts.
“It was a good visit to Florida,” Jenkins said. “I love Florida man. I love the facilities; the coaches and I just love everything about Florida. They are a great school to me. I love the Swamp and it was raining there.”
Player personnel director Drew Hughes is a native of Montgomery, Alabama and he was the one who spent a lot of time around Jenkins last weekend.
“Coach Hughes is from my area and he tells me that he loves me,” he said. “He tells me to get down there and play for them. He said that he was shocked at my size for being only a sophomore. I was 6-3, 335-pounds the other day.”
Jenkins has played several different positions in football but he’s not picky about where he wants to play in college.
“I’ll play anything the want me to play there,” Jenkins said. “I will play guard or tackle, it doesn’t matter me to as long as I get to play ball. I told them that I want to try and get down 310-pounds this year so I can play at that weight.”
Since it was a Saturday, a lot of the Florida Gators coaching staff weren’t in the office, but the ones that Jenkins did talk too all had the same message for him.
“Coach Summers wasn’t there on Saturday because he went out of town,” he said. “I talked to a lot of other coaches though. I talked to Coach Hughes, the defensive coordinator [Geoff Collins] and the linebackers coach [Randy Shannon]. They all were telling me that they love me.”
Florida Gators head coach Jim McElwain wasn’t in town on Saturday but Hughes made sure to send Jenkins off with a message about the Gators football program.
“Coach Hughes said that Florida is a nice program for me,” Jenkins said. “He was telling me about all their linemen that have gone to the league. It’s a good program and I know that four of their five starting linemen went to the league last year.”
Jenkins was joined on the trip by one of his teammates 2016 safety Jeawon Taylor, who has Florida as his leader, and the prospects are looking to potentially play in college together.
“Jeawon loves Florida, I hope he goes there,” he said. “We are talking about playing together. Me and him have got to get back down there for a game this fall. I plan to go to a couple of games.”
INSIDERS TAKE: Jenkins is considered to be one of the top lineman in the southeast for the Class of 2018 and the Florida Gators are in good shape with him early on. Player personnel director Drew Hughes has done a great job of getting Florida involved with him early on.