McCaffrey Joins Illustrious List Of Stanford Students Who Left Early

Stanford’s standout running back Christian McCaffrey has announced he will forego the 9–3 team’s bowl game in order to prepare for the 2017 NFL draft.

While McCaffrey initially indicated that he was preparing for the team's upcoming appearance in the Sun Bowl, he quickly shifted his plans after announcing on Twitter that he would not be playing in his team's match up versus North Carolina.

"Very tough decision, but I have decided not to play in the Sun Bowl so I can begin my draft prep immediately," McCaffrey wrote on Twitter Inc TWTR.

Analysts have speculated that McCaffrey’s decision is setting the stage for other players to follow suit in the future, setting a trend for NFL-ready players to avoid meaningless bowl games and prevent potential injury.

“I think that this is going to start happening a lot,” said Ryen Russillo of ESPN. “When you look at the way college athletics have been talked about the last few years there is almost outrage as to how unfair this system is,” he added.

McCaffrey's decision to leave Stanford early lists him among some notable individuals who chose to leave the prestigious university early to start their careers.

Tiger Woods left Stanford after just one year, quickly announcing his coming out party to the world. However, Woods indicated in 2016 that his one regret in his life was that he left college early for the pros.

Tennis bad boy John McEnroe also left Stanford early to begin his legendary career on the court.

Stanford has no shortage of tech pioneers who left school early to start their multi-billion dollar startups, including Snapchat’s Evan Spiegal and Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL's co-founder Sergey Brin.

No matter what people say about McCaffrey’s controversial decision, one can't deny he among good company.