A real bummer for fans, but a good decision for him. He’s broken nearly every record that Oregon had and played on the winning side in a major bowl game. He can also graduate in the spring. So why risk being injured in another season and lose a lucrative NFL contract opportunity?
I personally doubt his departure will have that great of an effect, but are you really surprised?
RBs have a limited shelf life, especially little guys like James. It would be crazy to stay in school, get beat up, for no money, when he’ll be picked within the first two rounds. I say that as a fan.
heck, i think it’s dumb of barkley to stay in school and potentially miss out on millions of dollars. i thought it was dumb when leinhart did it as well. you can always come back for a degree and winning bowl games is really trivial compared to the potential tens of millions that you’d be losing out on if you a) get injured and b) get exposed.
put it this way, bill gates dropped out to start microsoft. he didn’t stay in for an extra year just so he could complete a bar crawl, win a quiz bowl, or fulfill whatever 4th year tradition harvard has - and he did it without millions of partially-guaranteed money waiting for him.
USC players (Barkley, Leinhart) don’t leave before their eligibility is up because they do not want to take a cut in pay.
{rimshot}
d&r
I keed! I keed!
Also, DeAnthony Thomas is every bit as good as James. Oregon will still be dominant next year.
Thomas is as good or better than James in the open field; James is better between the tackles. But I agree that he’s smart to take the money before he gets hurt (again).
Another example of a guy who didn’t wait to graduate is Tiger Woods, who has made about a billion dollars, some of which he didn’t have to pay to his ex-wife.
Um, no it’s not. Hasn’t been a factor for at least a few years.
The Ducks are still loaded on the offensive side of the ball. IMO, any downtick will come from losing about half their starters on defense.
I don’t even know what this means.
sleepyDuck:
I mistyped, one third of the schedule is computers, which is heavily reliant on SoS (along with won/loss record).
excuse me.
And Pollsters vote in a skewed way to nullify the computers.
Actually when it comes to the final poll, the human voters and the computers have some correlation. At least at the top spots.
Curious to see if Thomas is still prone to fumble-itis next year. (As a USC alum, I sure hope so!)