Ryan Mathews To Decide on Fresno State Senior Year or NFL Career

With one game left in Fresno State's 2009 season, their star running back has an important decision to make. A decision that will either lead him back to the university he's played so well for, or a career on the the biggest stage of his young life.

For Ryan Mathews, this is going to be the most important football decision of his life. A decision that won't come easy and a decision that he will need to make on his own.

The star running back for Pat Hill and Fresno State has been a fan favorite since his freshman year. Ask most of those fans if they want him to stay and you'll get a more than resounding 'yes.'

But if every decision was left up to the fans, some of the best college players would never jump ship to the National Football League; they'd stay seniors their entire career.

Mathews won't deny that the thought hasn't crossed his mind, or that he hasn't talked to coach Hill about it. 

"We talked about it," Mathews told Daniel Lyght of the Fresno Bee .  "He is going to get evaluations on me and if I'm going to go in the top couple rounds, he's going to tell me to go because it's good money. But if not, I'll just play here another year and have fun."

The way Ryan sees is, until he's drafted by an NFL team, he's still a Bulldog. He wants the focus to be on the team and the game they still have remaining against Illinois this weekend and possibly a post season bowl game.

The possibilities for Mathews seemed to be endless through Fresno State's first nine games. He was leading the nation in rushing, averaging over 150 yards per game, and he was putting up big numbers against teams like Boise State, Wisconsin and Cincinnati.

But there was always one knock against him, his inability to stay healthy, something Mathews hadn't done through his freshman and sophomore seasons with the Bulldogs. 

His junior season, however, seemed to be different. People were noticing him, not only in the Central Valley, but also nationally. There was even talk of him possibly being a Heisman Trophy candidate if he continued to put up the kind of numbers he was putting up.

"People say that I'm injury prone and that I'm good, but not good enough," said Mathews. "I just feed off that. I love to prove people wrong."

Mathews had done just that. He had gone through most of the season without injury and looked well on his way to shattering school rushing records.

Then came the game against Nevada and the hit that put the star running back on the shelf.

The hit left Mathews with a concussion and forced him to miss the team's previous game against Louisiana Tech, It could possibly force him to miss the game against Illinois.

That has to be in the back of his mind and it has to be eating him alive. Knowing that he set out to prove people wrong, that he could stay healthy for an entire season. But one play changed all of that and it might have changed his NFL draft status as well.

For now, he'll get ready to spend Thanksgiving with his family before he boards the team plane bound for Champaign and the University of Illinois. Whether he'll play in this weekend's game or not is a decision that could come down to how he's feeling and running on Friday afternoon.

As for the decision to return to Fresno State or turn pro, that will have to wait until after the NFL season comes to a close at the end of January.

After that, it's just a matter of time before Fresno State fans, his coaches and teammates know if he'll be returning for his senior season or whether he'll take the leap to the National Football League.

The pros and cons won't be easy to weigh. He'll need the support from friends and family to make this decision. The biggest question on his mind at this point, is what the right decision is for him and for his future.

The only thing that could force Mathews to make the leap is the future of head coach Pat Hill. According to Matt James of the Fresno Bee, Hill may have coached his last game at Bulldog Stadium.

If that's the case and the university decides to move on without their long time head coach, they'll be moving on without arguably the best running back in Fresno State's history.