The tart popped back out. Cam Ward did not.
Miami’s quarterback has drawn plenty of heat for sitting out the second half of Saturday’s Pop-Tarts Bowl — a game his Hurricanes lost by just one point — but he’s got at least one defender in former NFL quarterback-turned-analyst Robert Griffin III.
“Same people criticizing Cam Ward for sitting out the 2nd half of the Pop Tarts Bowl, would be saying how dumb it was for him to play if he got hurt,” Griffin wrote in a post to X. “He didn’t have to play AT ALL. Instead he gave us a half of jaw dropping plays. Stop villainizing these student athletes.”
Jaw-dropping, mouth-watering — there are plenty of ways to describe Ward’s sumptuous first half of football on Saturday evening.
In the final game of his collegiate career, the Texas native tossed for three scores and usurped Case Keenum as the NCAA Division I’s all-time leader in touchdown passes.
But the presumed top-10 selection didn’t take a single snap in the second half.
Sophomore quarterback Emory Williams was under center for the Hurricanes in quarters three and four and he completed just five-of-14 passes for 26 yards.
His final pass of the game, a heave from Miami’s 40-yard line, was intercepted by Iowa State’s Drew Surges to secure the Cyclones a 42-41 victory and a bevy of postgame pastries.
Miami coach Mario Cristobal said the decision to sit Ward for the second half was planned in advance of the game but declined to elaborate further.
“All meetings with players, and decisions like that, we made them in private [so] we keep them in private,” Cristobal told reporters after the game. “I’ll prefer not to answer any questions as it relates to that. But I know [Ward] played his best while he was in there.”
Ward finished the contest with 12 completions on 19 attempts — good for 190 yards and three touchdowns.
The All-American and 2024 ACC Player of the Year projects to be the second quarterback selected in the 2025 NFL Draft behind Colorado’s Shadeur Sanders.
