Matt Barkley Made the Right Decision to Forgo the NFL and Return to USC

USC QB Matt Barkley obviously knew how to perfectly play the whole “Am I staying, or am I going” press conference show.

This afternoon, as the junior stoically stood in front of the entire country, Barkley started off his short speech by building the tension in the room, as he discussed the conversations he had with scouts and pro personnel folks, who all assured him that he was ready to play quarterback in the NFL, before proceeding to bring it back around with the "aha gotcha, I’m coming back" moment.

Cue the band, cue the enthusiastic clap by Lane Kiffin, cue every USC fan putting band aids over their fingertips after just nervously gnawing off their fingernails for hours.

Earlier, when I heard ESPN radio host Colin Cowherd say that Barkley would be announcing his decision about whether he would turn pro or return to USC today, I tweeted the following, “Dear Matt Barkley, go back to USC, win a national championship and a Heisman and then be the No.1 pick in 2013.”

Now, after he’s announced that he will indeed be staying, I think Barkley is capable of attaining the big goals I outlined in that little tweet.

It's truly all out in front of him at this point.

The early 2012 Heisman favorite?

Check.

The early favorite to be the No. 1 pick of the 2013 NFL Draft?

Check.

A national championship?

Well, I expect USC to be a top three ranked team going into the 2012 season, and maybe even the No. 1 team overall.

The point is, Barkley probably weighed his options and thought to himself, “You know, I could go make a bunch of money in the NFL and make football my actual job, or, I could enjoy living in Los Angeles for another year, hang out with my family and friends, and get to be the rock star of college football for the summer.”

The millions will come eventually, but the experience of being college football’s cover boy for an entire year is something that few athletes will ever get to touch.

Barkley saw the type of treatment that Andrew Luck was given this year, and he obviously thought it looked like a whole bunch of fun.

Barkley will now get to take over for Luck as the big shot of college football.

Admittedly, with that type of hype, comes some serious expectations.

But just look at Luck—he didn’t win a national championship, he didn’t win a Heisman, and yet he’s still everyone’s consensus favorite (not mine, I’m an RG3 man myself) to be the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft.

Luck got to live the good life for a year, and he’ll still probably end up with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, even though he didn’t win any of the hardware he was expected to this year.

That’s not too bad of a deal at all, is it?

In terms of raw natural ability, Barkley may not be on the same level as Luck, but the 21-year-old surfer-looking signal-caller has proven during his three years with the Trojans that he has some serious skills, as he’s thrown for over 9,000 yards and hit 80 touchdown strikes.

Most importantly, though, Barkley’s proven that he’s a winner.

Throughout his life and his football career, the California kid has been a winner, and he has those rare traits and intangibles that only the special quarterbacks possess.

I'm sure that some will second-guess him for his decision, since he was basically guaranteed to be a slam-dunk top 10 pick in next year’s draft.

People will make a big deal about all of the money he left on the table, but money can’t buy you happiness, and it’s clear that Barkley wouldn’t have been happy leaving USC without making one last run.

There will of course be those who play the “Oh my god, what if he gets hurt?” card.

And to them, I say look at Sam Bradford.

Bradford could have entered the 2009 NFL draft after his Heisman-winning season and contended with Matt Stafford to be the No. 1 overall pick, but he decided instead to return to Oklahoma to pursue a national championship.

And what happened?

He got injured in the first game of the year against BYU just as everyone had feared, and then he proceeded to miss basically his whole junior season.

But you know what, he still ended up becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft, and oh yeah, he ended up with the richest rookie contract in NFL history.

Yes, Sam Bradford made money by returning to school and getting hurt.

Now, no, that’s not to say that’s a wise strategy. What it is, however, is a past example that will hopefully calm down all of the critics who will begin clamoring about the idea that Matt Barkley could possibly screw himself by getting hurt as a senior.

It’s those types of “what if” people that get too caught up in the future, and don’t live in the moment.

For all we know, Barkley could have declared for the draft, tore his ACL why he was running the 40-yard dash at his pro day, and dropped out of the first round.

Then what would all the naysayers have said?

Point being, don’t play the what if game.

Barkley based his decision on the positive—the thoughts of winning a national championship with his teammates at USC, not the negative, the thought of “Oh no, I could get hurt and lose out on millions.”

Fate is fate.

People will of course bring up another USC quarterback Matt Leinart, who could have been the No. 1 pick of the 2005 draft, but instead chose to return to school for his senior year, like Barkley has done, and he ended up losing out on millions by doing so, as he dropped down to the 10th pick in 2006.

I’ll say this, though, Matt Leinart was a pretty solid college quarterback, who was surrounded by a historically talented team at USC.

But Leinart was no Matt Barkley.

Leinart had the talent, but he didn’t have the desire and the drive like Barkley does.

Barkley doesn’t want to be an actor, he doesn't seek fame or magazine covers, he doesn’t want to date Laguna Beach stars and he doesn’t want to hang out in hot tubs (OK, he’s a man, he probably does fantasize about a few of those things, but that’s besides the point).

What Barkley wants is to win football games and to enjoy the experience he’s been lucky enough to have been handed.

He’s been given the gift of being a great quarterback, and you can tell that he’s thoroughly thankful for the talents he’s been blessed with, and he wants to make the most of them and enjoy the ride and all that it entails.

"I want to finish what I started,” said Barkley during his press conference, and you know what, there’s nothing wrong with that.

I know OT Matt Kalil and DE Nick Perry may be off to the pros, but it only takes one look at the 2012 USC roster to realize that Barkley’s boys are going to be right in the thick of the national title hunt next year.

Robert Woods, T.J. McDonald, Marqise Lee, Khaled Holmes, Dion Bailey, Hayes Pullard, Nickell Robey, Curtis McNeil—Heck, I’m ready to buy some USC stock right now based off of those names, and that doesn’t even count the big freshman impact players that head coach Lane Kiffin is set to bring in with the 2012 recruiting class.

USC fans can certainly be happy that the Trojans are now climbing their way back to the top of the college football mountain, but they aren’t the only ones who should rejoice over Barkley’s decision.

My man Robert Griffin III should be doing cartwheels right now, because this just guaranteed him a spot in the top three of the 2012 NFL draft.

We’ll see how it all plays out in the end, and only time will tell if this was truly the right decision, but right now, as Barkley said during his announcement, it’s simply “time to go to work.”