Donovan Edwards's Absence Is Part of a Larger Trend

In an ideal world — at least from a sporting perspective — the bowl games that end every college football season should represent a high point for the schools and players involved. Increasingly, bowl games have begun to feel like more of an afterthought, at least for some of the players involved. And this year’s ReliaQuest Bowl is the latest competition to be without some marquee players, with Michigan running back Donovan Edwards announcing that he’ll be sitting this one out.

ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg reports that Edwards — who was named MVP of 2022’s Big Ten championship game — made the announcement on December 14. Edwards shared the news in an on-air interview with WXYZ reporter Alex Crescenti. As Rittenberg pointed out, Edwards will be the fourth high-profile Michigan player to opt out of this year’s bowl games.

In the case of Edwards and his teammates, their reasons for avoiding the ReliaQuest Bowl have to do with not wanting to pick an injury before the NFL Draft. That isn’t the only reason why NCAA football players will be missing bowl games this season, though; Marshall, originally scheduled to face off against Army in the Independence Bowl, pulled out of the game after dozens of their players opted for the transfer portal at the conclusion of the season.

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Edwards and his teammates are far from the only players to prioritize their pending professional careers over a bowl game, and this is not unique to this season. But it does beg the question of what the audience for the college football postseason makes of all of this.

It isn’t hard to see why a player would sit out a bowl game to avoid putting their future career at risk, but it’s also understandable why some viewers would be less interested in a less competitive bowl game as a result. College sports remains a field full of paradoxes, and this tension is the latest example of that.