To play or not to play? That is the question.
As college football bowl season comes to an end, the topic of the week has been centered around college players choosing to forgo their team’s bowl game — the final game of their careers — as they look toward the NFL Draft. It’s not exactly a new phenomenon, but the number of players deciding to opt-out of the bowl games has certainly increased over the years.
Heisman trophy finalist and projected first-round draft pick Kenny Pickett didn’t play in Pittsburgh’s Peach Bowl loss to Michigan State, while Ohio State star wide receivers Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson both opted out of the Rose Bowl. On Tuesday night, LSU was down to just 39 scholarship players due to opt-outs, COVID-19, and players entering the transfer portal. The trend has sapped much of the energy from the college bowl season, making bowl games which hold an immense amount of tradition, significantly less interesting.
The opt-outs are tied in with the emergence of the College Football Playoff system, making every other bowl game outside of the two semifinal games obsolete.
On the Saturday morning edition of “College Gameday,” analysts Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard waded into the opt-out waters, and their thoughts on the topic lit the social media world on fire.
“What’s the difference for a player to say these games are meaningless? Des, we played in ‘meaningless games.’…I just don’t understand. If you don’t make it to the Playoff, how is it meaningless to play football and compete?” Herbstreit said. “Isn’t that what we do as football players? We compete. I don’t know if changing it, expanding it [the CFP] is going to change anything.”
“I just think this era of player just doesn’t love football.”
Howard, the 1991 Heisman winner, agreed and took it a step further than Herbstreit.
“That’s what I was about to say,” Howard responded. “We’re dealing with a totally different mentality, we’re dealing with these student-athletes nowadays, especially football players. I mean, their whole mentality right now is about the championship, the Playoff….Because of that, they don’t value the bowl games. Now, when we were coming up — Herbstreit and myself — to go to a bowl game was a huge reward for a fantastic season.”
“Now, kids don’t really care about that,” he continued. “They have a sense of entitlement and it’s like, if we’re not going to the one that matters, it just doesn’t have as much value to them as it did to us growing up.”
Not surprisingly, the two were hammered for their thoughts, but it’s easy to understand where they’re coming from.
Herbstreit and Howard are “football guys” to the core. Not only did they play — and at a high level — but they’ve made covering the game their careers following the end of their playing days. They’ve watched as the game has changed in front of their eyes. It upsets them to watch the game they so love change, in their opinion, for the worse. While it may be the “get off my lawn” take, it’s not like they don’t have a point.
Bowl season has been greatly impacted as the game of college football has evolved. No longer do we spend the days in between Christmas and New Years closely watching each bowl game to see who will be selected as the best team in the land. With nothing on the line, players are choosing not to risk injury which could drastically impact their draft stock. It’s a serious bummer for those of us who grew up counting the days to the start of bowl season.
And while I understand Howard and Herbstreit’s frustration, I also understand why players would choose to sit out.
The bowl season as it is currently constructed does little for the players, but does a great deal for the universities and those who stand to profit off of them. With the introduction of the Name, Image and Likeness era, gone are the days when a gift card and a free trip to Boca Raton are enough to entice players to put their health on the line. Especially those that are set to make millions.
Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral is the perfect cautionary story.
Corral is a projected first-round draft pick, ranked as the 23rd overall prospect by ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. He went against the grain, choosing to play in the Rebels Sugar Bowl matchup against the Baylor Bears.
In December, Corral was asked whether he intended to opt-out of the game, and his response to reporters was one that fans of football everywhere could appreciate.
“I definitely wouldn’t have been in this position if it wasn’t for them,” Corral said when asked about opting out. “I’m not just going to leave. Ya, I know what’s on the other side. I know what’s ahead, but God’s got me. I’m not worried about the negative part. If that does happen, then it wasn’t meant to be.”
“I’m going to give these guys everything I got until it’s over.”
Unfortunately, the “negative part” did occur, with Corral forced to exit the Sugar Bowl in the first quarter after suffering a right leg injury. Corral was helped off the field before taking a cart to the locker room, returning to the sidelines on crutches to watch Baylor beat Ole Miss 21-7 Saturday night.
Fortunately, it appears that Corral dodged a terrible injury, with his father telling ESPN that the injury was a sprained ankle, and Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said Corral’s x-rays came back negative.
But what would have happened had the injury wound up being career-threatening? Maybe Corral makes some money off of an insurance policy? He still would lose out out on potentially millions of dollars in NFL salary.
I understand both sides. It’s up to college football to come up with a solution that benefits both sides, or the college football bowl season as we previously knew will officially die.
Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to [email protected].
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.