As Shedeur Sanders warmed up for his last game with Colorado, throwing passes to his receivers inside the Alamodome less than an hour before kickoff, the Jumbotrons above the field showed No. 13 Miami and No. 18 Iowa State playing in a close game at the Pop Tarts Bowl.
The two bowl games — the No. 23 Buffaloes’ Alamo Bowl matchup against No. 17 BYU and the Miami-Iowa State Pop-Tarts Bowl — featured the two top-rated quarterback prospects in the 2025 NFL Draft. It was a surprise to many that both Sanders and Miami’s Cam Ward played in their bowl games. In The Athletic’s Dane Brugler’s top 50 draft prospects, only five of the top 16 players whose teams were playing in non-College Football Playoff bowl games chose to play in those games.
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Sanders and fellow top prospect Travis Hunter’s Buffaloes would end up getting blown out by the Cougars, 36-14. And while Colorado was getting crushed, so was Miami’s Ward — but not on the field. On social media.
Ward started the Pop-Tarts Bowl and proceeded to shred Iowa State’s top-five ranked pass defense, throwing for 190 yards and three touchdowns in the first half. He did so even without three of his starting receivers, including Miami’s all-time receptions leader Xavier Restrepo, who had opted out.
Ward’s day was done at halftime. Miami backup quarterback Emory Williams took over. The Canes scored a touchdown on their opening series of the second half with only one pass on a 10-play drive to go up 38-28. But Iowa State rallied as Williams struggled, completing just five of 14 passes for 26 yards and an interception. Miami lost 42-41.
Ward’s absence in the second half sparked outrage. (Although it’s worth noting that it seems like none of the people who sounded so upset by this have ever been in Ward’s situation.)
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From sources inside the Miami program, no one was surprised that Ward didn’t finish the game. The Athletic learned that Ward agreed to start the game but there was no timeline in terms of how long he would play in the game. A big part of the reason Ward played in the game, according to those program sources, was because he knew that if he opted out, 10 other players would’ve opted out as well. But if he started the game, those others would start, too.
From conversations I’ve had with multiple Miami coaches and staffers over the past year who have repeatedly gushed about Ward’s leadership skills and competitiveness, I doubt those sentiments have changed much. I know it hasn’t from a few of the people I have talked to since the Pop-Tarts Bowl.
The expectation going into Saturday’s game was that Ward was probably just going to play the first quarter, but the Canes fumbled their first snap of the game. On their second series, running back Damien Martinez went 75 yards for a touchdown. Ward didn’t end up throwing his first pass until midway through the first quarter. Miami only ran 14 plays in the first quarter; only six of them were passes, including a touchdown pass, so Ward decided to play the second quarter.
It’s become the norm during bowl season for non-Playoff teams to be without star players, who either opt out or have jumped into the transfer portal. Last year, USC’s Caleb Williams, LSU’s Jayden Daniels and UNC’s Drake Maye — the first three overall picks of the 2024 NFL Draft — all opted not to play in their team’s bowl games. The other top-five picks of the draft, Marvin Harrison, Jr. and Joe Alt, skipped their bowl games. LSU receiver Malik Nabers, who was picked sixth, did play, but left the game at halftime.
On Tuesday, when asked about the uproar over Ward not playing in the second half of the Pop Tarts Bowl, an NFL general manager told The Athletic that he “didn’t think much of it,” saying he understood why he didn’t play the rest of the game.
The expanded 12-team Playoff has only made these other bowl games seem even less relevant. There is also a farcical element at play, too: No bowl, with the possible exception of the Duke Mayo Bowl, where the winning coach gets a bucket of mayonnaise dumped onto his head, has leaned into the silliness of these games more than the Pop-Tarts Bowl, with its edible, dancing mascots.
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It’s also not uncommon to see coaches leave their own programs for bigger jobs before their teams play in their bowl games. Yes, those coaches have buyouts that need to get sorted out, but it still comes back to people making business decisions that benefit themselves over their teams.
“All this stuff about finishing what you start and all that? That was fine and dandy 20 years ago, when everything was different,” a Power 4 coach told me this week.
If you’re a Miami player or fan, it’s hard to find fault with what Ward has brought to a program that has been sputtering for the past 20 years. The Canes have had just one 10-win season in that stretch, until this year (10-3). Ward finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting. Both Miami and Ward, a former zero-star recruit who began his career at FCS Incarnate Word and later transferred to Washington State, benefitted greatly from his move to Coral Gables, Fla.
Ward was projected as a middle-round pick heading into last year’s draft. He got a low seven-figure NIL deal and thrived in Miami’s system. Ward made a lot of money this year. The University of Miami made even more money off him through, and now he’s projected to become a top-10 draft pick.
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That doesn’t sound like something people should be worked up about.
(Photo: Peter Joneleit / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
