RG3 announces decision to go pro, expected to be top-10 pick in 2012 NFL draft
It’s official: Robert Griffin III is headed to the NFL. The 2011 Heisman Trophy winner announced Wednesday that after careful consideration, he has made his decision and is officially declaring himself available for the 2012 NFL draft.
Experts agree that Griffin will be the second quarterback selected in the April draft, after Stanford’s Andrew Luck, and many pundits (like Sports Illustrated here) predict RG3 could go as high as No. 2 overall.
Griffin will leave the Baylor campus with his name plastered all over the record books, but his contributions to the Bears’ football program and to the university in general go far beyond such numbers. As even ESPN has noted, his play helped put Baylor football on the national stage again — and brought the university along with it.
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Whether you’re talking athletics or academics, people who weren’t paying attention to Baylor before are doing so now. That goes for recruits, potential students, even alumni who carry a renewed sense of pride in the university. Some have joked that the new stadium planned along the Brazos River will be “the house that Robert built.”
What’s more, when given the spotlight, Griffin has been the best ambassador Baylor could ask for. Witness his constant deflections of attention back onto his teammates and the school, the class with which he has conducted himself and the focus with which he has attacked both his game preparation and his studies. That was all on display in his now-classic Heisman speech, bits of which — “No pressure, no diamonds,” “We compete, we win. We are Baylor.” — are already becoming part of the Baylor lexicon.
[READ: “UNFORG3TTABLE,” Baylor Magazine‘s look at the young man behind all the records and honors]
Though he leaves with one year of eligibility remaining, he will head to the pros already having completed his bachelor’s degree (in political science, earned Dec. 2010) and perhaps with his master’s in communications (he anticipates completing that by August). But that doesn’t mean he’s through with Baylor and Waco. “I’ll always be a Baylor Bear,” Griffin said Wednesday. “I’ll be around.”
He and the rest of his teammates will be around Saturday night, as Baylor hosts a ceremony to honor Griffin and the 2011 Baylor football team. The free public event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Ferrell Center; get more details here.
Robert, we thank you for the wins, for the acclaim, for the fun, and for the way you’ve carried the Baylor banner. We wish you well as you head to the NFL, and we look forward to seeing how you live out the Baylor mission on this new stage.
Sic ’em, RG3!
[The RG3 billboard pictured above went up in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Waco immediately following the Heisman announcement last month.]