The arrest earlier this month of former Notre Dame High School and Oklahoma State University receiver Adarius Bowman continues to have a profound effect on his professional future.

Bowman returned for his senior season at Oklahoma State with the goal of becoming the first receiver selected at last weekend’s NFL draft. He was not among the 252 selections Saturday and Sunday, nor has he been offered a free-agent contract by any of the league’s 32 teams.

“I had Bowman as a potential late first-round pick at the start of this past season,” ESPN draft analyst Todd McShay said Tuesday. “He dropped to the second- or third-round range as a result of his inconsistent 2007 season. Dropped passes and struggles separating at the Senior Bowl probably cost him another round or so, as did his 40 time in the 4.7s. His marijuana incident was the final straw.

“It’s really too bad, because he was a promising prospect at one point, but he didn’t get any better this past season, and his lack of focus and attention to detail was evident.”

Bowman was arrested April 1 in McMinn County for possession of marijuana and has not returned messages left on his cell phone to the Times Free Press since. He was suspended midway through his sophomore season at North Carolina for marijuana possession and was dismissed from the program a few months later for failing a drug test.

After transferring to Oklahoma State and sitting out the 2005 season, Bowman rocketed to stardom in 2006, highlighted by a 13-catch, 300-yard performance against Kansas that earned him a slew of national player-of-the-week honors. Going into last season, The Sporting News rated him as the top pro prospect in the Big 12 Conference.

One director of scouting for an AFC team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, does not believe Bowman will be offered a free-agent deal.

“It’s a fall unlike a lot of the ones we’ve ever seen,” the scout said. “There have been players in the past who have fallen in the draft because of certain things, but when you’re a kid with three strikes against you already and you’ve kind of rebuilt your image and then, bam, you’ve done it again — teams just don’t want to get burned by a guy like that.”

That scout said Bowman, based on his junior season with 60 receptions for 1,181 yards and 12 touchdowns, could have been a second- or third-round pick had he entered the draft last year. He added that second-round picks typically sign four-year contracts that total $8 million.

Some free agents can receive as much as $20,000, but the scout said “a guy still sitting there on Tuesday” would have to go to an NFL camp for free.

What advice does the scout have for Bowman?

“If he can get a free-agent contract, he’s talented enough to make a practice squad or even a team outright,” he said. “I would try the NFL for the next month, and then after that I’d go to the CFL and try to make a career out of it.”