Bowl games should be cherished, not dismissed

At first I thought maybe it was a generational thing, this distaste I have for Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey and now Shock Linwood bailing out of their college football bowl games.

But I saw a message on social media from a young assistant coach, a former player many of you remember well. Billy Ray Stutzmann, who played wide receiver at the University of Hawaii, is now receivers coach at Division III Emory & Henry.

“I wonder what teams feel like when their teammates opt out of their bowl game. I would not be a happy camper with these individuals,” Stutzmann tweeted.

I’m pretty sure there are at least a few unhappy campers at LSU, Stanford and Baylor — even if they aren’t saying it.

Publicly, they say they get it, and that they support the decisions their in-demand teammates have made to ensure their health and thus their stock in the upcoming NFL Draft.

Is anyone naive enough, though, to believe that those who aren’t stoked about being abandoned by these stars would actually come out and say it? College locker rooms are generally not a bastion of individual thought.

Wasn’t it just a few days ago when we were supposed to buy that the entire University of Minnesota football team was in support of a boycott of its bowl game, its purpose being to stand by 10 players suspended for sexual assault allegations?

The fact that there are two college football worlds — the NFL Developmental League and Everybody Else — comes into play here.

The NFL Developmental League is better known as the Power Five conferences, in which the college teams of Fournette, McCaffrey and Linwood play.

Brent Stockstill is a pretty good quarterback for Middle Tennessee. The Blue Raiders are here to play the University of Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl. Their leagues, Conference USA and the Mountain West, are part of Everybody Else.

As opposed to those who are passing on their bowl games, Stockstill is doing everything he can to try to play in his, cutting normal recovery time for a broken collarbone by weeks.

Maybe his view will change if he’s in high demand as an NFL prospect next year or in 2018 after his senior season. But at least for now, Stockstill thinks there are more

important things than the next thing.

Trying to be diplomatic, he said passing on a bowl game is a “unique” situation. But is it really? To me it seems more about what you value.

“Personally I don’t like that,” he said at a Hawaii Bowl press conference Monday. “I think you need to relish these times, especially with the seniors. … This is a chance of a lifetime to play in games like this and enjoy these extra few weeks with your teammates, especially with the seniors and continue to build on the foundation they laid. I personally think they should go out one more time with their teammates.”

Maybe part of it is MTSU’s bowl games have been in the Bahamas last year and now Hawaii. But, seriously, Everybody Else in college football is conditioned to cherish bowl games more than the entitled Power Five.

For many of the haves, unless you’re in the four-team College Football Playoff, or maybe one of the New Year’s Day games, a bowl game doesn’t mean so much.

“It’s hard to get to bowl games,” said Blue Raiders coach Rick Stockstill, Brent’s father. “Especially Conference USA teams, Mountain West teams, (other) Group of Five teams. Because of who we have to play out of conference. Hawaii and we played tough out of conference schedules. It’s special to go to a bowl game.”

Apparently, not special enough for some in the NFL Developmental League.

It’s easy for me to say, right? It’s not my millions of dollars on the line.

But that brings us to the part I really don’t understand: Fournette has two insurance policies for $10 million each and McCaffrey one for $5 million in case their draft statuses were hurt due to serious injury.

It’s true their careers are likely to be worth much more than that. It’s also true they could suffer career-ending injuries in training camp.

“In 30 years they’ll probably wish they played,” said Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich, who didn’t have a bowl game to go to or not after quarterbacking UH to a 9-3 record in 2001. “But it’s a personal decision.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.