College football: Abandonment, leaks, and much worse

The last week in college football has been extraordinary, much more so than anything we're likely to see in the 30-some bowl games that remain this season.

A recap:

1. Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey followed the example of LSU running back Leonard Fournette, and announced he was skipping his team's bowl game. Both are headed to the 2017 NFL draft.

2. Minnesota's team came within hours of boycotting the Holiday Bowl, after previously insisting their school lift the suspensions of 10 players stemming from a sexual assault complaint.

3. Gruesome video was released of Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon punching a female student in July 2014. The woman suffered four facial fractures and a wired jaw. Mixon was charged with a misdemeanor. Oklahoma school president David Boren, athletic director Joe Castiglione and football coach Bob Stoops were among the few people who saw the video two years ago. They decided Mixon, one of the nation's top running back recruits, would serve a football suspension for the 2014 season. He has rushed for 1,183 yards this season.

4. It was revealed former Wake Forest radio commentator Tommy Elrod - a former Wake Forest player and assistant coach - leaked details about that team's game plans to opponents. Louisville suspended offensive coordinator Lonnie Galloway for accepting information from Elrod.

Wow. That kind of dwarfs this week's Dollar General Bowl battle between Ohio and Troy, doesn't it?

How could McCaffrey do this to his team as it enters its all-important Sun Bowl date with North Carolina?

Easily and wisely, that's how. He'd have been a fool to play that game in El Paso. This is someone who had a combined 290 rushes and receptions this season, 382 last year. He's taken his punishment for Stanford, including an undisclosed injury in a midseason game that kept him from playing against Notre Dame the following week.

Those calling him selfish now can check back with us after they've taken the pounding McCaffrey has the last two years. He gave Stanford a lot more financially than the value of his scholarship.

There is a reason his teammates came out in full support of him Monday when many outsiders did not. Stanford students are smart, all of them. They know what McCaffrey did to help his team win the Pac-12 and Rose Bowl last season. They know he played hurt this year. They know they might have done the same thing had they the same kind of leverage.

Most Power 5 conference coaches get big bonuses for taking a team to any bowl. At Iowa, Kirk Ferentz's is $100,000. The players, meanwhile, get a set of gifts from the bowl that can't exceed $550 in value.

It's accepted business as usual when coaches change jobs and bail on their teams before they play their bowls. That happened this month at Houston, South Florida, Temple and Western Kentucky.

But I keep reading McCaffrey is selfish. For not risking injury in the Sun Bowl? Uh, it's a Sun Bowl. No one will remember it an hour after it's over. Quick, tell me who played in last year's Sun Bowl.

No one will remember the Dec. 27 Holiday Bowl an hour after it's over. But they'll remember Minnesota's team almost skipped it.

Late Friday, the Gophers' players were given copies of the 80-page sexual assault investigation report their school authored. Reading it, they realized they were going to forever be remembered badly if they went through with the boycott. The fact they canceled a bowl appearance would be the least of it.

I don't excuse the players for being misguided with their original demands for the suspended players to be reinstated and an apology to be given by the school. They said they didn't understand the suspensions, since Hennepin County prosecutors declined to prosecute the accused, saying there was insufficient admissible evidence for prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either force was used or that the victim was physically helpless as defined by law in a sexual encounter.

But a team's brotherhood bubble should only go so far.

However, it took the university's Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action report to make the players understand just why the school had imposed the suspensions (and recommended expulsions for five of the players). The players were forced to confront some harshly unpleasant facts.

Of couse, that report was shown to the players by the school's president and athletic director only when the prospect of increased national embarrassment and enduring negativity from a bowl boycott became a reality.

Now Minnesota is going to the Holiday Bowl, to face a Washington State program that has had at least 29 players arrested in its five years under Mike Leach.

From June to August of 2016, two WSU players were arrested for second-degree assault, one was arrested on suspicion of felony assault on robbery, and another was arrested on charges of felony assault. Alleged victims had a concussion, a broken jaw, a broken nose, and a concussion.

Which brings us to Oklahoma. In the summer of 2014, Mixon smashed a 20-year-old female's face with a punch at a Norman delicatessen. Mixon was charged with a misdemeanor, was suspended for the 2014 season, reached a plea agreement and served a year of probation, and was back with the team for the 2015 spring practice season.

Mixon's attorneys released the video last week. No matter how awful a crime sounds, there's nothing like video of it to set off much-hotter fires. Many who saw it for the first time recently have wondered why Boren, Castiglione and Stoops kept Mixon at their school and in their football program.

'It was made clear to Mr. Mixon at the time of his suspension that violence against women will not go unpunished at the university,” said a university statement released last Friday. 'Coach Stoops has been proactive in presenting training for his team aimed at preventing such behavior in the future. Sensitivity training in the area of violence has been intensified and best practices will continue to be implemented.

'Mr. Mixon has apologized for his actions and the university hopes that it is an indication that he has learned from his mistakes.”

Which is all very good. Still, don't you wish you had a dollar for every person who has asked this in the last week: What would the school have done if Mixon hadn't been a star football player?

Second-chances are a cornerstone of this life. But sometimes the second-chances should be given far, far away from where the first-chance was terribly misused. But Mixon did rush for 1,183 yards this season, so …

This all makes the Wakeyleaks story seem silly and harmless in comparison. But it's still a doozy.

Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich admitted his team's offensive coordinator accepted and shared information about an opponent from that opponent's radio analyst, and said he was 'disappointed that this issue has brought undue attention to our football staff as we prepare for our upcoming bowl game.”

The Atlantic Coast Conference fined Louisville and Virginia Tech $25,000 each for accepting game-plan information about Wake Forest.

Elrod wasn't retained as an assistant coach when Dave Clawson became Wake's head coach in 2014. Elrod was a former quarterback at the school. Clawson recently said he asked if it were a good idea to hire a radio commentator who had just been let go as a coach. It wasn't.

Elrod had access to the team's practices and traveled with the Demon Deacons to their games. Clawson let him watch film on the opponents to help him prepare for broadcasts.

That didn't work out so well. But Wake Forest did go 6-6 despite playing with disadvantages against certain opponents, so it became bowl-eligible. It will play in the Military Bowl next week against Temple. No one will remember the Military Bowl an hour after it's over.

Temple's coach, Matt Rhule, split for Baylor before the bowl. The Owls players who helped Rhule pad his resume won't share in his pay bump.

Some year, a team will boycott one of these bowl games for a valid reason. A great thing, that will be.