By Chris Marler
Love it or hate it, Cam Ward made the right choice.
The Miami quarterback played the first half because he entered the game needing three touchdowns to set the all-time NCAA record for passing touchdowns with 156. Read that again: the all-time record.
Of course he wanted to break that. Anybody would. And he did it, tossing three touchdowns in the first half.
He’s selfish for wanting to do so? Or selfish for wanting to sit out the second half of an exhibition game he never had to play in at a school he spent less than eight months at? Or is he selfish for both?
What was the payoff?
Hey Cam, if you play the second half of the bowl game, everyone on social media won’t slander you for the next 24 hours with fake outrage, and you could win the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Those are the pros. The cons? You could get injured and cost yourself millions of dollars. But again, Pop-Tarts Bowl MVPs don’t grow on trees.
Cam Ward came under incredible amounts of scrutiny after he decided to opt out at halftime of the Pop Tarts Bowl, a game Miami would lose by one point.
You can be mad all you want. You can disagree with his decision. You can even call it selfish. But, Cam Ward made the right decision.
Cam Ward was a zero star recruit with no offers from FBS schools because he played in a Wing T offense at Columbia High School in Texas where he averaged just 12 pass attempts per game.
He went to Incarnate Word–an FCS program at the time–because it was his only college offer. He threw for 71 touchdown passes and then transferred to a Power Five program at Washington State.
Then he transferred to Miami where, despite leading the country in almost every passing category imaginable, their 10-2 record kept the Hurricanes out of the College Football Playoff.
He then decided to play in the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
Cam Ward is an incredible story. He’s a zero star recruit that is on the brink of being a top ten NFL Draft Pick. Why would he want to jeopardize that?
He wouldn’t. None of us would.
Now, Ward sits alone atop the list of college football’s passing touchdown leaders.
