About a decade ago, the son of a lady my wife taught with at the time was getting offers from Ok.St, Rice, and a bunch of other AAC and Southland type schools. Probably could have gone SWAC had he wanted to. He really wanted to play in the Big 12 so he took the OkSt offer. I strongly encouraged him to go to Rice. He was Oline and I suggested that he'd get a far better education and that while Rice's program didn't have the strength of OkSt or a B12 team at the time (well, it still doesn't or is even worse now) that shouldn't hurt his NFL chances if he performs. He would have had a chance to start for 3 years, maybe 4, after a redshirt and regardless of what else happened, have a degree that meant a lot more than that from the other schools.
So he goes to OkSt, redshirts, plays 2 years and has his scholarship cancelled. I can't say I predicted that, but I don't think it would have happened at Rice. The OkSt coaches apparently liked what they were recruiting over what they thought they had in him. He transferred to SFA and, I think, played one year and graduated. He's teaching school and my wife has ran into him -- he's a good guy and should do well in whatever he wants, but there are a LOT of things to think about in these decisions.