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Adrian Peterson Says He Could Have Made Jump From High School to the NFL

Running back thinks he was good enough to pull it off.

The NFL refuses to open its doors for college freshmen and sophomores, so high school ballers have no shot at rocking the shield. If they did though, Adrian Peterson is convinced he would have successfully made the jump from high school to the pros.

"Not to sound cocky or anything, or confident, but yeah, I do feel like I could have came out my senior year of high school and played in the NFL. I really do," Peterson told ESPN. "And I'll just say this, people were like, 'Well, physically you just weren't ready.' I came in my freshman year and I was up for the Heisman, had a pretty good season, was the leading rusher."

According to ESPN, Peterson rushed for 2,960 yards and 32 touchdowns during his senior year at Palestine High School in Texas before running for 1,925 yards and 15 touchdowns as a freshman at Oklahoma.

The question about whether football players could make the jump, or should be allowed to, straight from high school to the NFL stems from the current success of LSU's sophomore running back, Leonard Fournette, who rushed for 1,034 yards as a freshman last season and already has piled up 631 yards in three games this season.

Despite his dominance, which included back-to-back 200-yard rushing games, Fournette isn't eligible for the NFL until the 2017 NFL Draft following his junior season, according to the league's rule.

Could Peterson have been just as dominant straight out of high school?

BET Sports News — Get the latest news and information about African-Americans in sports, including weekly recaps, celebrity news and photos of your favorite Black athletes.

(Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

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