Is opt out the new cop out?

Ben McDonald, former Baltimore Orioles pitcher turned SEC Network analyst, feels strongly that when it comes to a football bowl game that it is.

His Friday tweet read, “Hot topic again!  Players that opt out of bowl games!!  Can we please call it what it is?  Nobody opts out…they Quit! They quit on their teammates, coaches, and university!  That’s the bottom line.  Here’s the dirty little secret…they will do it at the net level too!  GM’s beware!”

Before the 2020 season started in year one of the coronavirus, the NCAA allowed a player to not play, not lose their scholarship, and not lose any eligibility if they felt like sitting beat possibly catching the dreaded illness.  Sounded reasonable then.

But, opting out now has spread like the Delta variant did in early 2021.  Running second team?  Opt out.  Coaches running you too hard?  Opt out.  Running from a girlfriend?  Opt out.  Running to a new coach at a new school?  Opt out.  NIL money better across the way?  Opt out.

Opting out and heading to the transfer portal is as easy as Alabama beating Rice.  Just say the word.  Heck, if you don’t like how your season is going, opt out.  If your coach gets fired, opt back in.

The counter to the complaint is that coaches leave for greener(read that as money) pastures all of the time. Players aren’t getting paid to play, so why shouldn’t they as well?

The counter to the counter is that now players are getting paid to play in addition to a paid-for scholarship.  Note, scholarships are paid for, not free.

So what is their obligation?  Where does the NCAA(if it exists in three years) draw the line?

The genie is out of the bottle.  And, it has granted too many wishes.

The landscape of college sports is changed forever.  That is until the next change moves it in another direction.

But back to McDonald’s rant, we go.  If you’ve toiled for a team, why leave before a bowl game?

Well, if the star QB is likely to get drafted you say “why should he risk injury, curtailing, or hurting his chances of getting the big bucks?”  When then does playing make more sense than not?  Maybe quit three games into the season?  Six?  Nine?  Before the bowl?  Why play in all-star bowls?  Why play ever?

Matt Corral played.  He barely avoided serious injury.  It meant something to him.

Ah, but if you’re in the playoffs (Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Cincinnatti) those are meaningful games says the current sentiment.  Opting out of those would be moronic and you’d be labeled a quitter.  Hmm.  Where to draw that pesky line?

Skip the meaningless Continental Tire Bowl last Tuesday in depressing downtown Detroit and who cares?  Maybe your teammates care that you don’t?  If they don’t maybe they shouldn’t be on the team either?

Since there are plenty of “I’s” now in “team,” where oh where do you draw the line?

The NCAA took Bob Barker’s advice years ago and got neutered.  But it could grow a pair and put stipulations into the scholarship offers and NIL restrictions/ opportunities going forward if it chose to.

You’d have to play to get paid.

You certainly do at the next level.

Old Ben McDonald once threw 159 pitches in an NCAA regional final in early June to get his baseball team to the College World Series. He was drafted two weeks later in round one.

He knows a thing or 159 about loyalty.  And, he didn’t get paid a dime to do so.