USC quarterback Matt Barkley has not been medically cleared to throw at the NFL Combine, according to NFL.com. Barkley has been rehabbing with famed surgeon Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Alabama, and expects to be ready to throw at USC's pro day on March 27th.
Barkley injured his throwing shoulder in a loss to UCLA on November 17th, and then missed USC's regular season finale against Notre Dame and the Sun Bowl on New Year's Eve, both losses.
Barkley started 47 games for USC, a school-record and is the Pac-12 career leader in completions with (1001), attempts (1562), yards (12,327) and touchdowns (116). He was widely projected as one of the top picks in last year's NFL draft but opted to return to USC for his senior season. The Trojans were the consensus number one team in the country in the preseason but suffered through a disappointing season and failed to meet expectations. Barkley, however, was not to blame for USC's troubles.
Barkley completed 63.6 percent of his passes in 2012, and chucked 36 touchdowns as opposed to just 15 interceptions and posted the second-highest quarterback rating of his Trojans career (157.6).
NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock has Barkley ranked as the second-best quarterback in the 2013 draft class and expects him to be a first-round pick. ESPN analyst Mel Kiper Jr., however, paints a less rosy picture of Barkley's draft stock. He is absent from Kiper's top 25 Big Board and in a mock draft posted earlier this month, Barkley was nowhere to be found in the first round. Fellow ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay has a quarterback in his Top 32, but McShay's top QB is West Virginia's Geno Smith, and not Barkley.
In addition to his injury and subsequent inability to throw at the Combine, there is a stigma recently attached to USC quarterback prospects, due to the rapid decline of Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart's NFL flameout, and the struggles of Mark Sanchez at the helm of the New York Jets.
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