Clayton stated that the NFL will refuse to admit Pryor into the draft simply because there are no official rulings from either the NCAA or Ohio State University that officially ban Pryor from playing college football. Despite the recent ruling by Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith to ban Pryor from the football team for five years, he hasn't been kicked out of school.
He also was never kicked off the football team. He simply left early. Pryor's decision to leave OSU was one he made of his own accord, and that doesn't make him eligible for the supplemental draft. He also hasn't been officially sanctioned by the NCAA, meaning that one of Pryor's options could have been simply going to another school for a year to play. He wasn't forced into the NFL.
Maurice Clarett, part two, is what this has turned into: a promising college player who gets himself into all sorts of trouble with his ego and improper benefits while at Ohio State. It's up to Pryor to determine if his pro career will go the way of Clarett's as well.
Pryor will need to use this next year very wisely. It will be interesting to see what direction Agent Drew Rosenhaus will push Pryor: UFL or CFL. He needs to find a place where he will get more game experience, and then he needs to hire a quarterback coach who can tutor him over the next several months. This may actually be a better situation for Pryor than entering the Supplemental Draft in a lockout year where teams don't have the luxury of time to develop raw quarterbacks in pre-season. Given a year away from the spotlight, we will see what Pryor does with his time.
1 comment:
Clearly, I got this one wrong. I still don't understand why he was allowed in, and then suspended. Ohio State only banned Pryor once he left for the NFL, and many questioned the timing of the ban at the time (considering there were no allegations). If there is still a story about what he did in his time at Columbus, it deserves to still come out.
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