BERKELEY, Calif. — Last week, on the morning after his 21st birthday, Jared Goff showed up on time for his 11 o’clock independent study class. He arrived at California’s Haas School of Business with baggy sweatpants and a hoodie on his lanky 6-foot-4 frame and a million-dollar investment portfolio on his laptop.
The hothouse question on campus is whether Goff, a junior quarterback who is projected as a first-round pick, will declare for the N.F.L. draft after the Golden Bears’ season. The possibility accounts for Goff’s weekly trek to the Haas School’s professional faculty wing and a glass-walled cubicle that has the feel of a terrarium.