Heisman trophy winner Desmond Howard's decision to leave Michigan in favor of playing professional football came down to one question.
What did he have left to prove?"There was nothing new that I could have done - maybe break a few more records, but as far as awards and accolades are concerned, once you've won the Heisman, then most people in college football think that you've done it all," Howard said Tuesday.
"All I would have been striving for if I would have come back would be the national championship."
Howard's decision to give up his last year of eligibility for the lure of whatever the market will bear for a low first-round NFL pick saddened some, but it surprised no one, save perhaps his mother.
"My gut feeling was that he would be here for Jermaine," Hattie Howard said Tuesday after Desmond's news conference in Crisler Arena, the building next to the stadium where Howard thrilled the nation with many of his sensational touchdown catches last fall.
Jermaine Howard will attend Michigan as a freshman this fall, and Mrs. Howard hoped Desmond would be here to show his younger brother around.
"Leading Jermaine on, that's mom's desire," she said. "But he sort of did what he wanted to. I'm not hurt, I'm just nervous about the next step."
The next step likely will be a lucrative NFL or CFL contract. Howard said he talked with Rocket Ismail, the Notre Dame speedster who left school early to join the Canadian league.
The difference, Michigan coach Gary Moeller said, is that Howard will have finished what he came to college to do.
"Maybe his mother said it best of all. She looked at me and she said, `One thing we have to concern ourselves with is, `What else can he do?'
"There's a lot to that statement because he has done it the right way. We're looking at a student-athlete, and I hope it comes across to everybody in that way," Moeller said.
Howard will graduate in May with a communications degree. Even with the hype of the Heisman and Michigan's Big Ten championship season, Howard had a 3.44 grade point average in the fall.
On the field, he caught an NCAA record-tying 19 TD passes, ran for two others and returned a punt and a kickoff for scores. The bottom line on his career: 134 catches, 32 TDs and 2,146 yards receiving.
NFL scouts have figured Howard for a top-10 draft pick, probably among the second five players taken. Coincidently, Howard's hometown Cleveland Browns have the No. 9 pick.