2026 NFL Draft Prospect Interview: Jalen McClendon, CB, Bowling Green

“Jalen [McClendon], my cousin, is a very strong young man. Growing up with Jalen when we were younger he always was very athletic and loved sports. He comes from a great family with really good support and our family history has always had a ton of great athletes. Jalen is the latest of the great athletes in our family. Any team that takes him on their NFL team will be getting a very outstanding, hard-working young man that will add value to the club. The play speaks for itself, very good athlete, very smart player, and instinctual. Excited to see where his career goes.”

⎯Zach Moss, NFL running back for three years for the Buffalo Bills, two years with the Indianapolis Colts, and one year with the Cincinnati Bengals

I had the opportunity to speak with Jalen McClendon, Cornerback, Bowling Green, and this is what he had to say as he’s preparing for the 2026 NFL Draft.

Q: Tell me about your background?

A: “My mom ended up moving to Tampa, Florida. Growing up, I played different sports. I ran track and did football. Once I started developing and getting older, I started doing wrestling. I started with baseball, I started a lot of different sports to stay busy during my time as a kid, just to stay busy away from the area, a lot of bad influences that were in my area at the time. My mom didn’t allow me around that. She tried to keep me dedicated to sports that I love and keep my head on straight.”

Q: What were the biggest lessons you learned from each of those sports?

A: “Everything is not always going to be perfect, but you can become a perfectionist by taking your time with the game and then studying it.”

Q: Which sport best prepared you for football?

A: “Wrestling really helped me with football, studying body movements, studying how everybody moves, how they step, how to chop somebody down, how to ankle bite, if he’s a bigger dude, really just developing the skills of learning how to take somebody down, to take somebody down, quick, fast, and efficiently.”

Q: When did you start playing football?

A: “I started playing flag football when I was three years old, but when I started experiencing contact was about six or seven years old, and ever since then, I just took off.”

Q: What made you want to play football?

A: “Really, growing up, where I grew up, the only thing that was around was football at the time. Football, football, everybody wanted to be the football player. Seeing my older cousins, like Santana Moss and Zach Moss, who were ahead of me, play the game really made me like, ‘I can do that too.’ It just took me over the edge, just with my mom going through a lot of stuff, and I was like, ‘I can change the way she lives by playing football,’ and ever since then, I just stuck to it.”

Q: What’s the biggest thing that Zach Moss has taught you?

A: “He’s a small guy, but he’s also very quiet. He never had any outbreaks; he’s never just been a wild guy. He really just told me you don’t have to be the biggest boasting guy to get looked at or to have to be the rah-rah guy, the talking crazy guy, just a showboating guy to stand on business about ball. I just always took that advice from him.”

Q: What’s the biggest thing you learned from Santana Moss?

A: “Everybody knows he’s a small guy. He really changed the game for small wide receivers during his time, learning how to move and how to play, especially during his time and era where the NFL was really tough and really hard for wide receivers wearing cleats was a big thing during that time, and just seeing him, how he lasted and developed as a small dude, and he just kept on transitioning in the game of football and he kept developing.”

Q: How would your friends describe you?

A: “All my friends would describe me as a real person.”

Q: What’s the most important thing to you in life?

A: “My family, my mom is important to me, watching my mom used to work three, four jobs. I used to take care of my siblings myself. My mom had to work countless jobs just to keep the light bill on, seeing her not eat and stuff like that, just to make sure that we were eating when she was not eating. I just want to keep repeating it to her, you know, Mom, I appreciate it, thank you for taking me to games, doing whatever she needed to do to make sure I got that little league money fee to make sure to get my equipment and stuff like that. She’s really important to me. I pay all of my respects to her.”

Q: What’s your philosophy in life?

A: “It’s not about what you know, it’s who you know. Just because you have all these things going on doesn’t mean everything is going to work good for you, great for you, it’s all about connections. It’s about where I’m at right now. I’m in Arizona right now. Coming out of college, I knew I had all these accomplishments and had all this stuff going for me, but I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to go hard and train, and just be connected to the coaches helping me out, putting the right people in my corner, and showing all this love. Being kind and not being a jerk always comes a long way. I’ve learned kindness is always better than boasting about how you feel. It’s just always worked.”

Q: What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from playing for Coach Eddie George?

A: “I’ve been with Coach George for five years, so I’ve been learning five years’ of stuff from Coach George. Just being around him, he’s always telling us, ‘Where we are right now, we are for the future.’ I never understood what that meant. Things might not always be going right, but we always stick to the code and stick to what we believe in. Everything always matters. If the locker room is always trash, then we’re going to be trash. If we’re cleaning up the locker room and taking care of what we take care of, the program gets better, and I’ve always seen that. Outside the field, he’s always told us, what you do outside the field affects you on the field gradewise, what you do outside of your football time and stuff like that. You have to be living right. If you’re not living right, things aren’t going to happen for you in any type of way or manner. I really appreciate him for taking a guy who came in not knowing what was going on. I was just a hard football player, and I had this stuff going on. He really shaped me and treated me the way a player should be treated.”

Q: What would you bring to a college All-Star game?

A: “A guy who can really stand up in the paint, and no matter if he’s 6’4″, no matter if he’s 5’11”, no matter if he runs a 4.2, I’m a real press man corner, that you can’t beat me on any old occasion, you’re going to have to earn it. I can get up in your face and show you that you’re gonna have to earn this catch. You are going to have to earn around me to show that you are a guy, and I show that on film, countless films, going against different guys and dudes. I can do this on any given day and not shy away from anybody.”

Q: Is there a specific match-up in your college career that you are most proud of?

A: “I’m proud of all my coverage.”

Q: How do you play a guy at 6’4″?

A: “It’s actually kind of better for me. I feel like the taller the guy, the more of the body there is for me to get into your body frame. A guy like that, you have to be patient, knowing he has longer steps, you have to really just read if he’s running the nine (route), he’s really going to take the wide out angle steps to kind of get around you and stuff like that. If his steps are choppy, that means he’s trying to get inside. Just really reading keys and stuff like that. He’s 6’4″, you notice that if he’s running a post, that means he’s running a post in about five steps, a post starts about 15-12 yards total yards, he’s getting there in five steps. So, you can’t really just look at that and be like Okay, that’s a short route because he’s taking five steps. You really got to understand his body type. He’s a real tall and slender man, and just have to read him.”

Q: What do you think the best part of your game is?

A: “Really, the best part of my game is adaptive. I can play off and play on, but I can really play on. I really can sit there in man. Just my IQ, too, just knowing the situation, just knowing if it’s 3rd and 2, alright, this is a quick pass, or if he’s going to take a shot, it’s going to have to be an out and up, because we’re probably going to be blitzing and stuff like that. Just knowing my situation of the game. If it’s the two-minute drill, there’s no point in me pressing up if they’re in two-minute drill and we’re up seven and they’re trying to quick score, there’s no point in pressing. Just IQ and knowing what’s going on.”

Q: What is your background on special teams?

A: “I love special teams too. I love going out there and guarding the gunners and literally making it the worst day for them, knowing that they’re going to go in there and coaches are going to ask them what happened on this play, because they just got mauled for literally ten seconds, they just got mauled. Going out there on gunner, showing my speed, you know, just showing I can be adaptive in any way, not just on defense, but on special teams too.”

Q: Talk to an NFL coach on this next question: what kind of defensive system do you think you best fit into, and why?

A: “Realistically, I’m looking for any coach out there that will take a guy like me, real good on special teams, real good as a defender, can go out there and be put on an island and stuff like that. I’m really just looking for any opportunity, any team that’s willing to take a chance on me.”

Q: How much game film do you watch?

A: “I watch a lot of game film.”

Q: Talk to an NFL General Manager, why they should draft you, what are they getting when they draft Jalen McClendon?

A: “I can go out there no matter where it is on special teams, and go out there to make a play to help the team, and also I can go out there and do my job, and not harm the team, on and off the field. Put the program first.”

Q: The NFL draft is coming up on April 23-April 25, it’s one of those days, and your phone rings, and it’s an NFL team, and they tell you that they’re taking you, you’re the pick, what’s that going to be like for you in that moment?

A: “It will be very sentimental. I’ve worked so hard. Being an underdog, I went through a lot of dirt in my life. I’ve put a lot of work in, and seeing that a team believes in me and stuff like that means a lot to me. I just want to keep proving to them that they picked the right pick, and I’m a guy who’s going to go out there and do my job, but that doesn’t mean just because I got picked that the work is over; it’s to be continued. How long can I last in the league? What can I do to improve the team? What can I do to make the team better? That’s just my focus. Longevity. What I’ve heard is that the life span for most NFL players is about two and a half years. I just want to beat those odds and keep playing the game I love for as long as I can. That’s my dream, just keep playing football, and just keep showing everybody that I love this game until I can’t play no more.”

Daniel Kelly is a former NFL Scout with the New York Jets. He was hired on the regime which featured Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Scott Pioli, Mike Tannenbaum, and Dick Haley. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for First Round Mock, and has written for Sports Illustrated (Lions, Jets, and 49ers), NFL Draft Diamonds, and Yardbarker, as well as a featured guest on ESPN Radio and Fox Sports Radio. Featured in USA Today. For more information about him visit his website at whateverittakesbook.com. Follow on Twitter @firstroundmock.