Karmic justice for Terrelle Pryor

A spectacular six months for Terrelle Pryor hit a peak Saturday:

According to ESPN's John Clayton, former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor has been ruled ineligible for the NFL's supplemental draft because the NCAA and OSU have yet to formally rule anything on him, and that needs to happen for him to enter the supplemental draft.

Translation: Pryor won't be playing in the NFL next year. I was actually wrong about this in my post the other day -- my understanding was that if he wasn't eligible for the supplemental draft but had already left school, he'd just be the equivalent of an undrafted free agent. That isn't the case, according to FOXSports.com:

The NFL has strict rules about supplemental draft eligibility because it doesn’t want players trying to skirt the regular draft in an attempt to manipulate where they might be picked. Quarterback Bernie Kosar did just that in 1985 to land with the Cleveland Browns instead of the Minnesota Vikings.

If the supplemental draft isn’t an option, Pryor could wait to enter the 2012 NFL draft or try to play in an alternate professional organization like the Canadian Football League.

How unfortunate. Given that Pryor's stock wasn't exactly at Kevin Kolb levels to begin with, I have to imagine that a year out of football will just about eliminate any chance of a meaningful NFL career. There's always the possibility of tearing up the CFL or doing a year's worth of hardcore QB training and looking intriguing enough to get somebody to take a shot late in next year's draft, but it's hard to envision this guy being motivated enough or consistent enough against professional competition to make either of those scenarios seem plausible.

So for at least the next year -- and probably a lot longer -- Terrelle Pryor will be known only as the guy who ended Jim Tressel's career (a well-deserved ending, of course) and then faded out of the public consciousness because he couldn't turn down cash, cars, tattoos or anything else that seemed gettable during his college "career" ... unless he sues the NFL (which worked out so well for Maurice Clarett), in which case he'll go down as even more of a laughingstock than he already is. It's a win-win situation for everybody other than Pryor.

Ohio State might still get off easy and cause me to throw an electronic device through my living room at a frighteningly high rate of speed (just ask my wife), but at least one responsible party is getting a fair dose of comeuppance.