SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- For three years, Stanford's Christian McCaffrey and LSU's Leonard Fournette caused panic each time they stepped onto the field. Earlier this month, they caused panic with their decisions to prematurely end their college careers.
In choosing not to play bowl games, Fournette and McCaffrey triggered a trend that surely would poison the soul of college football and destroy the sport's historic bowl system. A mass exodus of players was inevitable, and non-New Year's Six bowls would go belly up. McCaffrey and Fournette had made quitting OK, and college football would surely suffer the consequences.