These bowls will be just fine without Christian McCaffrey and Leonard Fournette

Stanford’s Christian McCaffrey and LSU’s Leonard Fournette, star running backs who’ve been injured at times this year, have chosen not to play in their teams’ bowl games this year in order to focus on the NFL draft. And oh, the hollering began!

Fournette’s choice to skip the Citrus Bowl against Louisville went over pretty well. Most people were aware he’d dealt with a bum ankle all year and had missed multiple games. Based on the reaction to McCaffrey sitting out the Sun Bowl against UNC, though, I don’t think most East Coasters realized he’s been hurt, too. He was hurt against Washington State, out against Notre Dame, and limited against Colorado.

Running backs have to take extreme care of their bodies. No position group loses value with wear-and-tear more quickly (and last year’s Fiesta Bowl is a big example of the risk posed by bowl games). Here’s an authority on the subject:

Their teammates have publicly said they’re fine with these two skipping bowls.

Fans should be, too. Setting aside what these decisions say about the future of the sport as an NFL minor league, the college athlete as cheap labor for the broadcasting industry, and the future of the bowl system (heavy stuff!), let’s just look at how these business decisions have changed these actual football games.

North Carolina’s run defense is bad. If you were excited about the Sun Bowl because you were hoping to see a Stanford running back force a shootout with a good offense by carving up UNC’s defense, well, here comes Bryce Love. The 5’10 sophomore has averaged 7-plus yards per touch for two years in limited action, and if ever there were a chance for a breakout game, it’s a bowl against a decent team with terrible rankings in 6-of-7 advanced run defense stats.

The Citrus Bowl’s an even easier sell. Fournette was Second Team All-SEC this year. His backup, Derrius Guice, was First Team. Louisville has an excellent run defense. Watch the damn Citrus Bowl.