Honest opinion:
1. He's anywhere from "not book smart" to "dumb as a post"
2. To that end, he's been JUCO since high school even though his high school coach heard back from every single school he sent his tape to
3. On the other hand, he learned Tennessee's playbook in his first year, which is never an easy feat for a first year player. To top that off he did it with a month less time than newcomers usually have, because he was still finishing classes at Hutchinson. He didn't arrive until July. This is not just some lip service feat, IMO. This is actually an impressive accomplishment.
4. He learned that offense well enough to execute a very wide variety of plays. He executed end-arounds, screen sweeps, jet sweeps, runs out of the backfield like a tailback, decoy end-arounds, and even an option pass he completed to Mychal Rivera for 28 yards against Missouri. And I'd swear his big TD run against Georgia was an option pass that he decided not to throw. And he wasn't a "one route" kind of player either. He ran fades, back shoulder plays, fade-stops, out routes, out-and-ups, slants, corner routes, shake routes, bang-8's, dig routes, curls, drags and I believe some wheel routes from different alignments. The only thing I don't recall seeing him run is a comeback. I'm sure he did it I just don't recall seeing one. And of course this is all in addition to his duties as kick returner, and later on during the season, as punt returner.
So really you do have some mixed signals. He doesn't seem smart and his history of poor grades doesn't seem to lend itself to him being smart. On the other hand he did something really impressive at Tennessee from a playbook standpoint in such a short space of time.