Clowney played hurt with S. Carolina

Houston Texans linebacker Jadeveon Clowney, who underwent surgery for a sports hernia two weeks ago that caused him to miss minicamp, played with the injury during his final season at South Carolina, according to a report.

Clowney had said earlier this month that the injury did not predate his time with Houston, but his agent told a different story to NFL.com during Thursday's NFL rookie symposium.

"He thought about not participating in his pro day but went ahead anyway, and what a performance," Clowney's agent, Bus Cook, told the website.

Cook says Clowney thought he was dealing with a groin injury.

When the surgery was announced, the Texans said the injury had happened recently. That statement was seemingly backed up by Clowney, who had said "everything feels great" after being drafted No. 1 overall by Houston in May.

When asked about the injury earlier this month, he insisted it wasn't something he dealt with before arriving in Houston.

"Just when I got here, they wanted to check me out, and I told them there was a little pain," Clowney said. "They were like, we just don't want it to linger over into the season, so we got it taken care of before anything happened."

Clowney passed all his physicals before the draft and the injury wasn't noted until OTAs, when Texans doctors diagnosed it as a sports hernia.

As for a timetable on a return, Clowney can't say.

"The pain, the injury's getting better every day, day by day," Clowney said earlier this month. "Just looking forward to getting healthy and looking forward to training camp."

Training camp starts the last week of July.

Information from ESPN.com's Tania Ganguli was used in this report.