1. If there is even a smidgen of a chance that he may not be the starter, why take that chance? His draft stock may not be great now, but it will be nada if he gets beaten out by Nathan Stanley.
2. They lose McCluster, Hodge, 3-4 o-linemen with one of the returners being Sowell, his TE which was another o-lineman in that offense, and the fullback. That would concern me if I was him. Ole Miss also loses most of their secondary, their top linebacker, and at least a couple of d-linemen.
3. He regressed this season under Nutt.
4. Nutt and Austin having issues with each other with him potentially being caught up in the middle.
5. I think there will be a rookie salary cap coming into effect next year.
6. You look at the draft class. If I was an NFL team and you have a choice to draft between Snead, McCoy, Tebow, or Bradford, I would take probably Bradford first and then Snead. Especially with Mallett staying at Arkansas. Snead is a project, but his skills translate better to the NFL in many ways than those other guys.
I think he is smart to do this, but I'm sure that Ole Miss is going to do everything in their power to try to make sure he comes back. In hindsight, he should have left last year.