NC State running back TA McClendon has decided to leave school one year early and enter the NFL draft.
It’s an interesting decision for TA. When he’s healthy, he’s as good as any back in the country (except maybe for Adrian Peterson or Reggie Bush). He’s a big, powerful runner who is hard to bring down and has enough speed that if he gets in the backfield, he can go all the way.
The problem is that he’s seemingly never healthy. I can’t remember any player in any sport who had so many different injuries in such a brief period. It’s not like he had a nagging knee or ankle injury, it was everything – knees, ankles, wrists, toes, pinkies, earlobes, you name it.
Maybe he figured that he better get a paycheck before he knocks himself out for good.
The other knock on TA, and one that might concern NFL reps the most, is that TA had a disturbing tendency to fumble. He fumbled 13 times in only three abreviated years. Many of those fumbles, like the big one at the end of the Carolina game this year, came at critical times.
Caulton Tudor has a pretty good article today touching on many of these same points. Like many of us Tudor, just doesn’t know exactly what to make of TA. Was he a great bad player or a bad great player? (Coincidently, I’ve heard the exact same sentiment about State basketball player Julius Hodge.)