Did Gurley want to be suspended?

I'm going to label this as somewhat of a conspiracy theory up front. Before his suspension, the only realistic threat to knock Gurley out of the first round was an injury. Given his spot in the draft, the best possible scenario for him was to end the season where it was.

Given his situation, there are a few alternative scenarios.
- Finish the season and risk injury, potentially losing colossal amounts of money in the event of a devastating injury like Lattimore a few years back.
- Tell the coach you want to sit the rest of the games. Likely getting himself kicked off the team and at the very least hurting his draft stock due to attitude etc...
- Get docked with a minor NCAA infraction, miss games, and do negligible damage to his draft stock.



Now that his suspension is almost up, how has it affected him?:
- A significantly reduced risk of injury.
- He's probably out of the Heisman race, and would likely be in 2nd or 3rd now regardless.
- When he returns, he will probably get about half the carries he was seeing prior to suspension. This is a huge positive for him, reducing the risk of injury even more.
- His draft stock will be unchanged.
- He got several weeks of time in which his practices weren't restricted, essentially bonus time to get ready for the combine.


This suspension, statistically and monetarily, was the best thing that could have happened to Gurley. Every athlete in college football is continuously taught what they can and cannot do. They know they can't sign autographs for money. I'm not saying that he purposefully got suspended, but it wouldn't have been a bad move if he did.