When LSU's Leonard Fournette announced Friday he was skipping the Citrus Bowl to save himself for the NFL draft, I raised my arms to calm the outrage of the masses. Fournette is a special case who carried the ball more than 600 times for the Tigers, I said. He has earned this right and, besides, this will not start a trend, I added.
When Stanford's Christian McCaffrey announced Monday that he would skip the Sun Bowl to prepare for the draft, again I said not to worry. Another special case to be sure, McCaffrey broke Barry Sanders' single-season all-purpose yardage record as a sophomore in 2015.