Will Jameis Winston prove to be worth the risk?

LOS ANGELES — He is 6 feet 4 with an arm and a smile. He has won a Heisman Trophy, plays quarterback for a program that has won 29 consecutive games, is 26-0 as a starter, wins on the road, wins in the fourth quarter, and he could be on the verge of a second national championship in a row.

Many believe there’s only one thing wrong with Jameis Winston: Everything.

One or two more games and then relative fun time will be over. Winston will turn pro, either following Thursday’s Rose Bowl or, should Florida State upset Oregon, the ensuing national title game next week.

Life for troubled superstars in the relatively protected environment of a big-time college football program can be far different than the one they experience in the NFL. Ask Johnny Manziel.

Nobody has ever questioned Winston’s potential at the NFL level. He’s the best athlete in college football but his actions, real and alleged, have so turned off fans and media members that he finished sixth in this year’s Heisman voting after winning the same honor last year. The trophy went to the relative anti-Winston, Oregon’s Marcus Mariota.

At best, Winston is a big goofy kid who needs to grow up. At worst, he’s a troubled and enabled athlete who will believes the world does, and should, revolve around him.

Of all the red flags on his resume, the sexual assault allegations are by far the worst. There are only two people who know what really happened that night in December of 2012. But no charges were filed. The biggest problems were created by the Tallahassee Police Department’s well-chronicled bungling of the case and Florida State’s history of coddling and enabling their football stars. It follows that Winston has become an easier target.

NFL teams don’t like risks. They really don’t like risks at quarterback, particularly when it costs them a first-round draft pick and a fat contract. Winston is projected to go anywhere from second overall (behind Mariota) to 10th or lower. The uncertainty isn’t over his talent but his character.

“I don’t understand it,” said former Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Charles Kelly, who sees Winston daily in practice as FSU’s coordinator. “What I do is I judge off what I see. I know what I see on the field and I know what kind of person he is. I know what he’s like with his teammates.”

And then: “To me, just because a guy laughs or does something silly doesn’t make him immature, it makes him a human being.”

Defenders will embrace that remark, critics will mock it.

Winston says he’s not concerned either way.

“I can’t really control what other people think,” he said. “I know who I am. The guys in the locker room know who I am and people not involved with our family don’t know who I am. So like I said, perception is reality.”

The smile seldom leaves his face. That doesn’t make him any more innocent or guilty of anything, but if he’s letting the criticism and increasing scrutiny to get to him, he doesn’t show it.

“Because it’s not really about y’all, it’s about this Florida State team, and my job is not to be down on myself,” he said. “Why would I be down on myself when I’m a blessed man? I have a great team. So y’all always look at the negative things in life but I look at the positive things in life. I have a young brother, I have both my parents, my grandma is still living, I have a little sister and I gotta do right for them.”

Winston said the adversity “affects my family” more than him.

“I can take the heat, all of it. But my family, you know, they got a lot of grief, having to talk to my mom and she is crying over things that I know I never did. So that’s the hardest thing, just dealing with my family. This stuff doesn’t bother me.”

Seminoles wide receiver Rashad Greene says that’s not an act. “I’m not sure if anyone in the country would be able to be in his position and be as successful as he has been,” he said.

Some team will take a chance on Winston early in the draft. His ceiling is too high not to, and the NFL is a quarterback-driven league.

Stealing crab legs, firing at squirrels with a BB gun, jumping up on a table on campus to yell vulgar comments — none of that will stop a team from making him a rich man. Then team officials will run the damage-control playbook and talk about how they did their due diligence, how Winston has grown, how important he’ll become to his team and the community.

Then the real judging will start.

“I grew up watching Randall Cunningham, Michael Vick, Donavan McNabb, just because they’re African-American quarterbacks,” Winston said. “But I love Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, even Drew Brees, because they make their whole organization better. That’s what I want to do. I want to make our whole team better — not just one player, not just one position, even walk-ons.”