COLUMBUS, Ohio — It all starts with the meeting room.
That’s what stuck with Eli Apple after attending an Ohio State football camp in middle school. He saw the pictures on the wall honoring Shawn Springs, Antoine Winfield and other former Buckeye cornerbacks who went on to the NFL. He watched cornerback Malcolm Jenkins, a fellow New Jersey product, breeze through drills.
Apple wanted to be on that wall. He needed to be on that wall.
"That’s been a goal of mine since I was in middle school coming to camps here,” Apple said during spring practice before the 2015 season.