Posted by Josh KatzowitzSuck for Luck? Oh, it’s so on.
In a widely-expected move -- I mean, could you really imagine him returning to Stanford for his senior season? -- quarterback Andrew Luck, the most wanted college player in the NFL, will not return to school after his season is complete.
That’s the word from Yahoo Sports, which reports that Luck will not take college classes next quarter as he prepares himself for the 2012 NFL draft and a possible relocation to Indianapolis.
There were some observers who apparently believed Luck could return to school in order to manipulate which team could possibly take him No. 1 in the draft (if that, in fact, is where Luck is selected). But that’s not going to happen at this point, and when winter quarter classes begin Jan. 9 at Stanford, Luck won’t be there.
More from Yahoo:
“He could still go back and register for classes, but that’s not the plan,” said a source who has known Luck for many years.
Luck’s father, Oliver, who played quarterback in the NFL and is now the athletic director at West Virginia University, wrote via text message that his son “does have academic work this spring that he needs to complete to graduate … and he’s planning to finish his academics.” When asked specifically about whether his son would be taking classes or focusing on his NFL future, Luck wrote: “All I can tell you is that he’ll finish his degree. It is important to him.”
If you were to analyze this situation deeply, you could make the claim that Luck might not want to play in Indianapolis, because there’s a decent chance he’d be stuck behind Peyton Manning for a few years. This assumes, of course, that Manning is healthy and that Indianapolis wouldn’t trade Luck for a boatload of draft picks. But as far as returning to Stanford to avoid that potential clash, it sounds like that’s not playing a factor in his decision.
“That’s not his style,” Yahoo’s source said. “He doesn’t like all the attention to begin with and now you’re talking about doing something that would bring a lot of extra attention on him. … I know it has been done, but there’s no guarantee of where you go. Even now, you can’t figure out what the teams are really going to do. He wants to go somewhere and have a chance to be great. You can’t create that by yourself.”
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