Sports While Cam Ward hasn’t decided if he’ll throw at the NFL Mix next week, the quarterback knows how he’ll reply any scouts or team personnel who seek data from him if he quit on the Miami Hurricanes team by now not finishing his closing sport with them.
“Okay, you’re both going to draft me or you’re now not,” Ward said Monday night sooner than receiving the Davey O’Brien Award because the nation’s prime school quarterback. “Within the occasion you don’t draft me, that’s your fault. It’s major to undergo in mind you’re the identical team that’s got to play me for the relaxation of my profession, and I may undergo in mind that.”
Ward used to be showered with on-line criticism after he didn’t play the 2nd half of of the Hurricanes’ 42-41 loss to Iowa Recount in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in December. He broke the NCAA Division I portray for profession touchdown passes sooner than halftime.
The quarterback, who could be the foremost player taken in the NFL Draft in April, said the decision now to now not play in the 2nd half of of that bowl sport used to be predetermined by him and your total coaching workers.
Shedeur Sanders, Cam Ward & Travis Hunter in Joel Klatt’s NFL Mock Draft 1.0 | Joel Klatt Display “I correct focus on all of us got what we wanted out of it. They seen things that they focus on they wish to work on … for this season coming up. And they also knew, you know, what I had on the toll road,” Ward said. “We feel love we’re doing what’s simplest for the program and myself. I imply, it used to be an unimaginable decision, especially when, you know, some guys on our team didn’t play who I believed ought to have played. It used to be also, you know, those guys thought of their future the identical formulation I believed of mine.”
Miami coach Mario Cristobal has defended Ward, and remaining month referred to as the accusations of him quitting on the team “a groundless memoir.”
“If I may per chance perhaps per chance perhaps elevate out it again, I’d elevate out it the identical formulation,” Ward said Monday, despite the truth that he later added, “I desire shall we have ended up a hit the sport. If we had obtained the sport, they don’t have said nothing. And so that’s most incessantly how it goes. And, you know, you correct got to elevate it on the chin and proper wait on pushing.”
Why Cam Ward sitting out 2nd half of of Pop-Tarts Bowl is now not a enormous deal | The Herd With the foremost of his three TD passes in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, when he threw for 190 yards to push Miami to a 31-28 halftime lead, Ward broke the Division I — FBS and FCS — portray at 156 touchdowns, one more than Houston’s Case Keenum (2007-11). Miami venerable Emory Williams at quarterback in the 2nd half of, and has since added used Georgia quarterback Carson Beck as a switch.
Ward accomplished his school profession with 158 touchdown passes and his 18,189 passing yards — 6,908 at Incarnate Word, 6,968 at Washington Recount and 4,313 at Miami — is third-most in NCAA historical past in the help of only Case Keenum and Dillon Gabriel. In his lone season with Miami, Ward problem single-season college portray for yards, completions (305), touchdown passes (39) and completion percentage — each and every for a season and a profession, at 67.2%.
As for the upcoming combine, Ward said he hadn’t attain up with a thought of what he would elevate out next week in Indianapolis, Indiana. He does thought to throw at Miami’s legit day, which runs from Feb. 27 to March 2.
The O’Brien Award ceremony came about three weeks after Ward accredited the Manning Award. He followed Jayden Daniels, the 2023 Heisman Trophy winner who also obtained each and every of those quarterback awards sooner than being the 2nd overall draft pick remaining 365 days and then main the Washington Commanders to the NFC Championship Game.
“To glimpse him succeed,” Ward said, “is motivating for now not only myself however the total other quarterbacks.”
Reporting by The Associated Press.
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