One bowl game isn’t worth jeopardizing NFL riches
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – It was bound to happen, sooner or later.
The right circumstances just had to be in place for an elite college football player, or two, to decide that it wasn’t in his best interest to play in a bowl game before pursuing an NFL career.
Two of the top running backs in college football – Louisiana State’s Leonard Fournette and Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey – recently made that decision, causing a mixed reaction.
On one side you have those who support the decision, thinking why jeopardize a chance to earn millions of dollars for one bowl game?
The other side stresses loyalty and feels that a player owes it to his team, to his school and to his fans to stay the course.
My response to the loyalty argument is what about all the coaches who skip bowl games in order to take more lucrative jobs?
Why should student-athletes be held to a higher standard than the adults? Coaches are allowed to come and go pretty much as they please with no consequences.
Tom Herman bolted from the Houston football team in late November in order to take what he says is his dream job as the head coach at Texas.
You can’t blame Herman for wanting to climb up the coaching ladder. Texas is about as good as it gets when it comes to college head coaching jobs. You name it and the Longhorns have it from a resources and tradition standpoint.
But if Herman can bail on his team before a bowl game, then why can’t a player do the same in order to help his future?
An argument against players skipping bowl games to protect their NFL draft status is that it’ll open up the flood gates for more to do the same.
Maybe so, but you can't blame a young man who plays a violent sport in which professional careers are short and not always sweet for wanting to avoid a potential life-changing injury in a bowl game.
We’re probably talking about a handful of players each year who would consider skipping a bowl game to protect their NFL stock.
Or maybe it will start a trend because it'll be easier for other elite players to make the same decision now that Fournette and McCaffrey have blazed a trail.
If so, the bowls and the schools will just have to deal with it or come up with a solution because the college football landscape is changing.
The argument that student-athletes already have a lot given to them doesn’t pack the same punch that it used to, not with some of today’s coaches making seven-figure salaries.
It seems that whenever an adult/coach makes a sudden move that leaves others hanging, it’s justified as somebody trying to improve their place in life.
But when a student-athlete does something similar, it often is considered selfish and irresponsible, especially with regard to football and men's basketball..
That’s a double standard.
The pieces had to fall in place for Fournette and McCaffery to make this decision.
One piece is that they both play running back, a position that has a short life expectancy, even by NFL standards. Another season of getting pounded at the collegiate level might cut into their professional earning power.
Another piece is that LSU and Stanford both have underachieved this season and will play in bowl games that have little national significance. LSU will play Louisville in the Citrus Bowl on Dec. 31, while Stanford will face North Carolina in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 30 in El Paso, Texas.
A third piece is that both players dealt with injuries this season, so why risk doing it again?
The 6-foot-1, 230-pound Fournette will almost certainly be one of the first players selected in the 2017 NFL Draft. He is a rare physical specimen who already has accomplished enough in college to have maximized his stock.
The 6-0, 202-pound McCaffrey also figures to go high in the draft after being Stanford’s workhorse running back in each of the past two seasons.
He showcased all of his skills at the expense of Iowa in the 2016 Rose Bowl, racking up 368 total yards, including a 75-yard touchdown reception on the first play from scrimmage.
So what does McCaffery have left to prove?
If he and Fournette feel it’s in their best interest to skip the bowl game, then more power to them.
You can’t expect a player to always put the team above his own interest when coaches don’t meet that expectation.
From a local standpoint, there have been no rumblings suggesting that Iowa All-America cornerback Desmond King is considering skipping the Outback Bowl against Florida, but you could understand if he did. One more game won’t improve King’s NFL stock, but it could damage it if he were to be injured.
It’s easy to call somebody selfish or entitled when you’re not walking in their shoes.
College football is a big business in which athletic directors and league commissioners are constantly looking for ways to generate revenue and stuff their pockets.
Fournette and McCaffery helped stuff those pockets with their play on the field. They now want to stuff their own pockets and feel that playing in a bowl game isn’t worth the risk.
In each case, it’s probably not worth it.