From the moment it was announced the UNC football team would be taking on No. 18 Stanford in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 30, the majority of the talk has centered on how the shaky Tar Heel run defense would handle the Cardinal’s All-American tailback Christian McCaffrey.

That all changed on Monday when the junior–a Heisman Trophy finalist last season who has already announced his intentions to enter this spring’s NFL Draft–announced on Twitter he will not play in the game in order to begin preparing for his professional career.

McCaffrey is now the latest star running back–a position that traditionally takes more physical punishment than any other–to make this decision.

LSU’s Leonard Fournette recently said he, too, will not be participating in his team’s bowl game in order to prepare for the draft.

It will obviously come as a huge blow to the Cardinal, which have relied on McCaffrey to single-handedly carry an offense that doesn’t possess many other weapons.

For the second straight season, McCaffrey leads the nation in all-purpose yards per game–even with defenses targeting him in their game plan each week.

He has run for 1,603 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2016, while also leading Stanford with 37 receptions in the passing game.

As the Cardinal rush to put together an entirely new offensive strategy against the Tar Heels, UNC can breathe a sigh of relief knowing it won’t have to deal with the stress of defending last season’s AP Player of the Year.

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