KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee tailback Jamal Lewis indicated he'll probably forgo his senior season if he's projected as one of the top five picks of the upcoming NFL draft.

"If you've got the potential to come out and go in the top five, or something like that, it's reasonable," said Lewis, who was featured in Sports Illustrated as one of the top 10 players the NFL wants. "If I'm ready, mentally and physically, that's the big factor. But if I'm not ready, I'm not going to leave. I'm not going to leave just because of money."

Lewis said he'll likely return to UT if he's projected as a late first-round pick.

"That's not good enough; that's good enough for an average back, but if you're a back of my caliber and you've got the potential to go higher than that, why settle for that?" he said.

"If you can go in the top five picks, why would you settle for the late 20s? That's where I draw the line."

Lewis said he secured a $1 million insurance policy prior to the start of the sophomore year at the urging of former Vols' assistant coach Rodney Garner. But the policy doesn't account for the loss of future earnings, and Lewis said that's also a consideration.

"It's a business decision," said Lewis, who has come back from a torn lateral collateral ligament in his right knee suffered in the fourth game of the 1998 season. "You've got to look at things overall. You're getting hit constantly, and that's the health factor I was talking about."

It took a few games this season for Lewis to get back into his groove. He said that in the earlier games he was running somewhat timid, waiting too long for holes to open up. The "old" Jamal returned against Georgia -- he knocked Bulldogs players out of the game on consecutive plays -- and he hasn't stopped running over people since.

Lewis had 117 yards on 23 carries against Alabama and finished with 146 yards on 14 carries against South Carolina before leaving the game with a bruised left shoulder.

Lewis had the longest touchdown run of his career against the Gamecocks, a 70-yarder.

"I think that answered a lot of questions, that I can still break the long run," Lewis said. "I'm a complete back. You can look at film and you'll see that there's nothing that I really can't do.

"It's a big decision in my life and it's something I'll sit down with my family and coaches and talk about."

Lewis is averaging five yards a carry this season with 709 yards and six scores on 141 attempts.

Lewis needs to average 107.5 yards over the last four games to become the first UT tailback to rush for 3,000 career yards.

"That would be great," Lewis said. "That's reasonable. As long as I'm helping the team win, that's all I care about."

(Mike Griffith writes for The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee.)