Sorenson contrasts Clowney's situation with that of RB Marcus Lattimore, who because of injury has probably gone from 1st round to status to late round at best. Should that concern Clowney?

S. Carolina Gamecocks’ Jadeveon Clowney should think about skipping 2013 | CharlotteObserver.com
If you’re Clowney, what do you do? Give the school everything you have and try to upend the Crimson Tide? Play not to get hurt? Or sign with an agent, get assigned coaches and trainers and spend the season pumping up and preparing for the pros?

Here are some of the issues:

• As Darin Gantt tweeted, the NFL beat-writer media would pummel Clowney as not 'having a passion for the game'. I have to admit I would wonder about the kid's mental make-up. Is it more about the money than anything else?Obviously playing the NFL is always the money but could a kid end his college career in such a fashion?
• So I imagine there would be a number of agents lined up to support Clowney over the next 12 months until the draft expecting the big payday in the end. When I say 'support' I do mean monetarily. What would a 20 year old do in that 12 months besides work out? It would be awful easy to get distracted if a kid suddenly had money AND no school work nor a job other than to work out.
• How would he walk around campus? He'd have to drop out of school right? That is another big draw back I would think. I would hope his parents would weigh in here as getting an education is something that can't be taken away. Even if Clowney should skip his junior year there is no guarantee he wouldn't blow out his knee training or even as a rookie entering the league. An education open doors once football is over regardless of how much money you made..

So my final thoughts are that though it might seem like the prudent thing to do to play it safe until the draft it would be a lot harder to do than you think. Also there is risk of injury in everything we do even when we try to play it safe. Finally I have to agree it might call into question the mental make-up and actually have some teams cool a player looking to be selected in the top 10. That's a huge investment no team wants to make a mistake on.

So I think it's a bad idea and that's coming from a non-Gamecock fan. Thoughts?