Times wires
Thursday, June 9, 2011
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The attorney for former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor said Thursday that Pryor turned down a chance to play in the Canadian Football League and is focusing on being selected by an NFL team this summer.
"He's definitely looking at the supplemental draft," Larry James said.
"Some time ago I put up a top-100 list (for the 2012 draft) and I had Pryor right around 100 on that list," said Gil Brandt, an NFL draft analyst and former general manager of the Cowboys. "And that was before all of this came to fruition."
The "all of this" Brandt was referring to are the problems at Ohio State: coach Jim Tressel's forced resignation, an ongoing and all-encompassing NCAA probe and, on Tuesday night, Pryor's announcement that he wouldn't return to school and play his senior season.
Pryor, the nation's No. 1 quarterback recruit when he signed in 2008, had already been suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season for trading autographs and memorabilia for cash and discounted tattoos. The NCAA also is looking into the cars Pryor has owned or was loaned while at Ohio State. Investigators left campus last week, president Gordon Gee says, but the probe will continue ahead of an Aug. 12 meeting between OSU officials and the NCAA's committee on infractions.
James said that, since Pryor is no longer a student, he felt no compunction to speak with investigators anymore.
"They're not going to give him or any other student-athlete any due process rights to speak of, so he's moved on," James said.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders, who held Pryor's Canadian Football League negotiating rights, made a play for him Wednesday. Pryor turned down the Roughriders and the CFL on Thursday morning.
To get into a supplemental draft, Pryor would have to petition the NFL for entry. Pryor won a lot at Ohio State but was never selected first-team All-Big Ten and has questions about his passing ability, leadership qualities and dedication.
"I would be surprised if somebody took him before the fifth round in a supplemental draft," said ESPN college-football analyst Chris Spielman, a former All-American linebacker at Ohio State who played 11 years in the NFL. "You'll maybe have an opportunity to grow into the job. Right now, he's not close."
bush heisman: Reggie Bush's copy of his 2005 Heisman Trophy is in the possession of a San Diego sports museum, but not on display. Angela LaChica, a vice president at the San Diego Hall of Champions, says the hall received the trophy from the family in March but never displayed it and now is in the process of getting it back in the hands of Bush's family. The Heisman Trust no longer recognizes Bush as the winner of the award.
tennessee: The university will merge the men's and women's athletics departments and longtime women's AD Joan Cronan will be interim director. She was named the interim vice chancellor and director of athletics, overseeing all sports, and will be responsible for hiring a baseball coach. She has been an athletic director for 38 years and Tennessee's women's director for 28 and will be the first woman to manage men's and women's athletic programs in the SEC. In other news, coach Derek Dooley dismissed defensive tackle Montori Hughes for unspecified reasons.
swac ban: The Southwestern Athletic Conference voted to ban Jackson State and Southern from competing in the league's 2011 football championship game because of low APR scores.
track: Sophomore Jeremy Postin earned UF's first All-America honor in the men's hammer throw and junior distance runner Genevieve LaCaze broke her own school record in the women's steeplechase (10:04.68) on the second day of the NCAA outdoor championships in Des Moines, Iowa.
Basketball: Former Arizona point guard Momo Jones will transfer to Iona, according to several reports. … North Carolina State transfer Ryan Harrow enrolled at Kentucky for summer classes. He will sit out this season, and coach John Calipari said he expects Harrow to be a "major contributor" in 2012.