If you’re actually angry at Drake Maye for skipping UNC’s bowl game, you shouldn’t be
This is such a specious argument that it almost feels like a ridiculous straw man, but apparently some North Carolina fans are unhappy that Drake Maye has elected not to play in a glorified postseason exhibition celebrating a condiment?
That’s hard to believe. Not only Maye but two generations of his family have given UNC far more than they have taken from the university. Whether he’s the first pick of the NFL draft — by the Chicago Bears, using the Carolina Panthers’ pick — or not, Maye would risk not only millions but the trajectory of his entire future playing against West Virginia in Wednesday’s Duke’s Mayo Bowl (5:30 p.m., ESPN) for nothing more than pride, even in his hometown.
Maye’s done enough. He owes North Carolina nothing. It’s time to move on, for player and team alike.
Most fans seem to understand that, and are instead thankful for the possibilities Maye’s two seasons at quarterback created, even if few of those possibilities were realized. Maye needs to do what’s best for himself now, and in no universe is that playing one more college game that means very little.
The same is true of Tez Walker, although his decision to opt out of a bowl game in Charlotte is the single funniest outcome of the entire Affaire de Devontez, since everyone from Mack Brown to the governor screamed to high heaven that the NCAA needed to make Walker eligible for the Tar Heels’ opener in Charlotte against South Carolina so he could play in front of his grandmother.
Now he can finally play in Charlotte in front of his grandmother ... but has better things to do. That’s entirely his choice, and quite frankly the smart one. No one should begrudge any college football player doing what he thinks is right for his career in 2023, and Walker should have been eligible the first time around anyway.
That he wasn’t was a travesty, a wrong now righted for every athlete in his situation thanks to the lawsuit filed by attorney general Josh Stein and several of his peers, but righted too late for Walker. With the first couple rounds of the NFL draft in Walker’s immediate future, logic certainly outweighs sentiment for him as well. It’s no different than a coach under contract leaving for a better job before a bowl. Money talks.
Eventually, football players will either be contractually obligated to participate in bowl games — that’s something that can be collectively bargained, if the NCAA ever gets around to that — or be offered financial incentives that make playing worth their while.
With all the money wasted in the extravagant and anachronistic bowl system, it would be easy to divert some of that to key players with lucrative NIL deals (and insurance policies). That still might not matter for Maye and Walker, the kind of top draft picks who have been opting out of bowl games for years, from the moment they started to realize what an NFL rookie deal was actually worth. (Only six years ago, it was a very big deal that Bradley Chubb chose not to play for N.C. State in the Sun Bowl, a year after Christian McCaffrey did the same for Stanford against UNC.)
But it might work for someone who figures to go in later rounds of the draft like Payton Wilson, who opted out of N.C. State’s Thursday bowl game in Orlando, or a player who intends to transfer but wants one more game with his teammates, as several Duke players did in their Birmingham Bowl win over Troy and defensive back D.J. Jones will do for UNC.
Because there’s always going to be a reason to opt out of anything short of a national semifinal once the rivalry games and conference championships are over. There’s a reason mid-tier bowls like the Duke’s Mayo Bowl and Pop-Tarts Bowl lean into shtick the way they do, with mayonnaise baths and toaster trophies: They know they need to sell the sizzle, not the steak.
If Maye and Walker and Cedric Gray and Corey Gaynor don’t think that’s worth their time or the risk — Myles Murphy, who is expected to play, does — no one should hold that against them. They’re just making business decisions.
It’s a business.
A very silly one.
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This story was originally published December 27, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
