Does the NFL Draft care about college football opt-outs anymore?

INDIANAPOLIS — Before he became the 2025 NFL Draft’s presumptive No. 1 pick, quarterback Cam Ward sat out the final 30 minutes of his record-breaking college football career in controversial fashion during Miami’s 42-41 loss to Iowa State in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.

Ward, a consensus first-team All-American, had thrown for 190 yards and three scores, the last of which broke the NCAA’s career record for touchdown passes (158). He stepped aside after building a 31-28 halftime lead and watched from the sidelines as replacement Emory Williams completed just 5 of 14 passes for 26 yards over the final two quarters.

Miami coach Mario Cristobal declined to answer questions about his star quarterback’s status after the game, which invited greater scrutiny. The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman later reported Ward had agreed to play an undetermined number of plays in the bowl game, in part to keep several of his teammates from opting out entirely. But neither Ward nor Cristobal took a proactive role in making that reasoning clear.

Two months later, at the NFL combine, Ward was asked whether any NFL team representatives had spoken with him about his mid-game opt-out.

“No discussion at all,” Ward said, scowling. “At the end of the day, it’s March; the bowl game was in December. At some point, you’ve got to move on. I’ve never lived my life in the past.”

If no NFL officials asked Ward about sitting out, his combine experience was much different than what Christian McCaffrey faced in 2017. Stanford’s All-America running back had dealt with an undisclosed injury during his junior season and decided competing in a mid-level bowl wasn’t in his best interest, choosing to opt out of the 2016 Sun Bowl to begin training for the draft. 

At that winter’s combine, McCaffrey told reporters NFL teams had brought up his decision. “I just tell them how it is when they ask,” he said. “I’m extremely honest with them, and then we move on to now and playing football.” The Carolina Panthers chose McCaffrey with the No. 8 pick.

Since McCaffery and LSU’s Leonard Fournette made similar decisions — and became top-10 selections — in the same cycle eight years ago, draft hopefuls regularly bow out of bowl games that don’t impact the national championship picture. Of the 32 picks in last year’s first round, 17 chose not to play in their bowl games; only four saw the field in a non-College Football Playoff postseason game. Ten projected first-rounders in The Athletic NFL Draft analyst Dane Brugler’s latest 2025 mock draft did not compete in the 2024-25 postseason.

Has the stigma around opt-outs subsided? Questions still come up during the pre-draft process, but it’s only a part of the equation for NFL personnel.

“Each player has his right to opt out or do whatever he wants to do,” Houston Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “We’ll evaluate the full process. I don’t think it comes down to one particular game. When we are evaluating guys here at the combine, our scouts, they’ve been watching these guys since they were freshmen. So, we have a lot of history with these guys, not just one decision of a guy opting out.”

Impact injuries suffered during high-profile bowl games helped supercharge the opt-out trend.  Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker in 2015 and was considered a possible top-five selection, but he tore his ACL and LCL in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State. He fell to the second round.

Michigan tight end Jake Butt won the 2016 Mackey Award as the nation’s top tight end and was considered a likely second-round pick for the 2017 draft. In the Orange Bowl against Florida State, Butt suffered a torn ACL and plummeted to the fifth round. Neither player returned to their pre-injury form in the NFL.

And players have their eyes on the NFL earlier than December. In 2018, former Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa suffered a core muscle injury during the Buckeyes’ third game of the season. He opted for surgery in mid-September to get healthy for the draft rather than attempt a late-season comeback. At the 2019 combine, Bosa described NFL teams as “supportive” of his decision to sit out, and he was selected with the second pick in the draft by the San Francisco 49ers.

“They’re all evaluated on an individual basis,” Seattle general manager John Schneider said. “Every circumstance is different. It depends on what’s going on with the player at the school. Where he is medically, it’s just part of the evaluation process, good or bad.” 

No team seems concerned with Ward’s decision or for any other prospect that opts out of bowl games. But there are other situations that NFL personnel departments deem ambiguous. This year, Iowa cornerback Jermari Harris chose to sit out his team’s final two regular-season games to have a screw removed from his leg above his ankle. It hadn’t affected his play — Harris was a second-team AP All-Big Ten cornerback despite appearing in just 10 games — but he wanted to ensure his leg was healed in time for draft preparation.

“I decided to get that done and get ready for this process,” Harris said at the combine. “It was a tough decision, of course, me being one of the leaders on the team. Everybody gave me support, being there as long as I have been, six years. I gave so much to the program. Everybody understood and wished me the best of luck.

“Ultimately, it was a decision I made, not based on myself, but for my family’s well-being as well and everything that we’ve been through.”

Harris attended the East-West Shrine Bowl but did not play in the game. At the combine, he spoke with teams who asked “a good amount of questions” about his decision, he said.

A scout for an NFC team who evaluates Midwestern candidates said the team is aware of Harris’ situation but declined to reveal how the team interprets the cornerback’s explanation. In general, the scout said, if the team determines a player leaves his team in the regular season based primarily on draft preparation rather than a medical decision, “it’s not a good look.” How much a team scrutinizes the situation largely depends on the player’s NFL potential.

Ward’s halftime decision won’t cost him a draft slot, just like it didn’t impact the Chicago Bears selecting USC quarterback Caleb Williams with the top pick in 2023 after Williams opted out of the Holiday Bowl. Bosa sitting out after an injury wasn’t an issue, either. These days, most teams have few concerns about college players opting out, regardless of the reasoning.

“I’m really not going to hold it against them if they decide not to play in a bowl game or do what’s best for them financially,” Carolina general manager Dan Morgan said. “I think it’s no different than anybody else in any other job that they’re going to do what’s best for them and their situation and their family. So, I don’t really hold that against them.”

(Photo: Jasen Vinlove / Imagn Images)

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