Auburn wide receiver Sammie Coates announced Monday that he is going to bypa s his senior season and turn pro. Coates has great speed and is an elite athlete, but he remains raw as a receiver and needs to hone his craft. But there is no doubt he has a big upside. He graduated from Auburn on Saturday and has been invited to the . He told reporters at a news conference that he would not be leaving if he had not graduated."He's got a bright future. I'm real proud of him," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said at the news conference, . "He's got his degree and that was very important for Sammie."Coates (6-foot-2, 201 pounds) mi sed one game this season with a leg injury and has just 30 receptions Nick Wittgren Jersey , for 717 yards (23.98 yards per catch) and four TDs, heading into the Outback Bowl against Wisconsin. He had a huge game in a lo s to Alabama, with five catches for 206 yards and two TDs.All his TDs came in three games -- and those were, by far, his best games of the season. In addition to his performance against Alabama, he had four receptions for 144 yards and a TD in a win over LSU and five catches for 122 yards and a touchdown in a victory over Mi si sippi. Remove those three contests, though, and he didn't have a game this season with more than 64 receiving yards. As a sophomore in 2013, he had seven TD receptions, and they averaged 54.1 yards per pop. Coates -- who has been asked to do a lot of blocking in Auburn's version of the spread -- has been clocked in the 4.3s in the 40-yard dash and has a vertical jump that has been measured at a staggering 44 inches. He will test extremely well in pre-draft workouts and might be overvalued a bit because of his high-level athleticism. But he is far from polished. Fellow junior wide receiver D'haquille Williams also is a candidate to turn pro; he is in his first season at Auburn after transferring in from junior college.Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter . Deven Marrero Jersey