College Football Championship 2015

Before the 2015 College Football Playoff national championship, an injured Ifo Ekpre-Olomu made his way on crutches to the field before the Oregon Ducks played Ohio State.

(Bruce Ely/The Oregonian, 2015)

They were All-Americans playing on top-10 teams and projected first-round NFL draft choices. At Oregon and Notre Dame, respectively, Ifo Ekpre-Olomu and Jaylon Smith were synonymous with success.

In the final weeks and moments of their college football careers, they became something far different: cautionary tales whose injuries waylaid their NFL dreams.

Though Ekpre-Olomu suffered his major knee injury while preparing for the Oregon Ducks' bowl in 2014, and Smith left Notre Dame following last season, both were lumped into a discussion about the college game Monday after LSU's Leonard Fournette and Stanford's Christian McCaffrey, both juniors, each opted out of playing in their team's bowl game. The running backs had previously declared they would forgo their senior seasons and enter the 2017 NFL draft, where each is likely to be selected in the first round. Those choices were expected.

What they did next wasn't so easily predicted, by choosing an abbreviated end to their injury-filled final season in college as a way of accelerating their preparation for their first in the NFL. Fournette already has signed with an agent, meaning if he wants to watch LSU in the Citrus Bowl, he can't travel with his now-former teammates.

"I think it could definitely start (a trend)," Ekpre-Olomu said in a phone interview Monday. "It's giving more people opportunities to let them know that they can actually do that. I'm sure a lot of players didn't think that they could say, 'Oh, I'm just not going to play' and there would be no ramifications because of it."

A rangy Notre Dame linebacker gifted in both pass coverage and run pursuit, Smith tore knee ligaments during last January's Fiesta Bowl, a non-playoff matchup, and lost what some believe is an estimated $19 million after falling to the 34th overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft.

Ekpre-Olomu's inclusion in the Fournette-McCaffrey debate isn't quite as analogous because he, unlike McCaffrey's Cardinal or Fournette's Tigers, was preparing for a game of much higher stakes -- the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl -- when he dislocated his left knee during practice in December 2014. Like Smith, he had taken out a multimillion-dollar insurance policy to guard against a catastrophic injury in the preseason, and it paid off. In October 2015 Ekpre-Olomu became the first college football player to collect the full amount from his "loss of value" policy -- close to $3 million. The policy had pegged his earning potential as a first-round pick and kicked in when he fell to Cleveland in the seventh round.

There were ramifications, of course, for McCaffrey and Fournette's choices. Critics panned the decisions as the opposite of the team-first ideal.

It was clear both stars separately decided it was more cost-effective to take a public relations hit than a blow to another body part.

"If it's based on (injuries), I get it, no question about it," former NFL coach Steve Mariucci said on Monday's Rich Eisen Show. "I hope it doesn't start a trend where the premier players that think they're going to be top-10 picks say, 'You know I'm not gonna play because I don't want to get hurt.'"

Fournette has played in just seven games this season and cited a lingering ankle injury in his decision to skip his bowl. McCaffrey missed time due to an undisclosed injury this season while still leading the country in all-purpose yardage. He is skipping the Sun Bowl.

Supporters pointed out that coaches are rarely criticized when they leave for better jobs before the end of the season. Texas' Tom Herman and Oregon's Willie Taggart, who left South Florida three weeks before the Bulls' Dec. 27 Birmingham Bowl, are two recent examples out of many. Some teammates of Fournette and McCaffrey, among others, hailed the moves as a smart, potentially precedent-setting way to guard against further injury in unnecessary bowl games that will have zero bearing on the next national champion.

"It wouldn't have been wrong to play, but it would have been risky," The Oregonian/OregonLive's Ken Goe wrote. "They would have put their bodies in harm's way for games that exist primarily for the sake of television programming, and so college administrators can reward themselves with bonuses and holiday vacations to bowl sites."

To "analysts" bashing these guys decision to sit out of a bowl game, stop. The end goal is the NFL, not the "insert company name" bowl. — Devon Allen (@DevonAllen13) December 20, 2016

I had an injury that required turf toe surgery and 3 mo. rehab, suffered on final play of bowl game blowout, so I see McCaffery's point. — Jordan Kent (@jordanrkent) December 20, 2016

In essence, the star running backs were applauded for not putting themselves in position to be the next Ekpre-Olomu or Smith.

What did Ekpre-Olomu think of that?

"I don't think I would ever have sat out, but I'd never really had an injury before that point where I felt like I didn't feel like I'd be ready to be OK in a week or two," he said. "I don't think everyone's going to be doing it, but if you're a person in those two situations like McCaffrey and Fournette are, who are going to be really high picks, you kind of have to do what's best for you, especially in the NFL."

Ekpre-Olomu didn't realize the nightmare end to his college career had been cited by some media outlets and many on social media as a reason why Fournette and McCaffrey made prudent, if unpopular, choices. Personally, he's a believer in seeing out a career until the end.

"You're always playing for something more," he said, even when "more" is pride, a trophy and stat line from a mid-tier bowl.

During the 2015 NFL combine, Ifo Ekpre-Olomu could only watch amid his rehabilitation from a knee injury.

But Ekpre-Olomu's opinion is more nuanced, and less hard-line, noting that NFL rookies hold less earning power under the current NFL collective bargaining agreement than in the past. The security of a second NFL contract only happens if players are productive during their first, and so Ekpre-Olomu understands if players are wary not only of lingering injuries, but the threat of a future one.

"I feel like in McCaffrey's case, and Fournette, they're not just sitting out because they feel perfectly fine," he said. "I think they're dealing with injuries.

"They have to remember that college football isn't forever but I mean, especially Fournette, you could tell he's been off and on every other game. You could see the reason why he's not playing."

Released by the Browns after the 2015 season, Ekpre-Olomu joined the Miami Dolphins only to tear the ACL in his opposite knee last summer. Four months after undergoing surgery, he has relocated to Hillsboro and says he's pleased with his rehabilitation.

Upon McCaffrey and Fournette's announcements, the immediate fear expressed by many was that in the future, the best players in college who are not playing in the playoff would similarly look for an early exit with their NFL draft stocks in mind.

Ekpre-Olomu didn't dismiss the thought; however, he seemed more interested in tracking how their example might affect a different subset of college players, the so-called "late-bloomers" who won't have taken out insurance policies before star-making seasons.

"If you don't have that protection, I could definitely see why you'd feel that way," he said. "Especially in college, what's really the incentive for them to come through an injury that late in the year, especially if they think it's something that can linger?"

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif