I feel terrible for the kids who got caught up in the current culture wars. Many of these same kids wouldn’t lose a minute of sleep over the risks of CTE, spinal cord injuries, sports related surgeries, dietary supplements, Steroids, HGH, etc. To say they declined the vaccine because of potential side effects is nonsense (even though they do believe that). They made their decisions based on choosing a side, just like most of the comments here.
A few years from now when covid-19 has been usurped by other deadlier viruses, and the covid-19 vaccines didn't cause a mass extinction event.. and these guys have had time to think about how close they were to winning that beautiful trophy, I can’t image they won’t all regret the decisions they made.
Note: No one in their right mind thinks that the NCAA rules/guidelines make much sense at this point, or that a more equitable solution couldn’t have been reached, but every school understood those rules, and they knew that 4 teams from other sports had already been sent home.