When it comes to strength training, you're looking to develop power. Power can be expressed in a two ways. First, you can lift something really heavy. Second, you can lift something relatively lighter, but at a higher velocity. These are two different types of strength. Some power lifters can deadlift over 1000 lbs, but it takes them 10 seconds from the beginning of the lift until they reach full extension. On the other end of the spectrum (and we'll stick with legs here), you've got sprinters, who have very powerful legs, but their legs don't move weight, they just move very fast.

The reason that Olympic lifts have been so popular in sports training, and particularly in football (if you know anything about Mike Barwis or the Barwis Method, he advocates lots of cleans) is because the Olympic lifts train a good combination of strength (the ability to lift heavy things) with speed, or a good mix of power for what is needed in football. Now, I will say that I haven't heard people advocating a lot for snatches in football workouts, because you can get the same benefits (hip hinge, ideal power combo) with the clean, but I don't know much about collegiate football workout regimes.

The other advantage of Olympic lifts is they train multi-joint movements. In other words, you aren't isolating one muscle (say you're doing leg extensions, you aren't just targeting your quads while your hamstrings take a break). Instead with Olympic lifts you are targeting lots of muscles and several major joint movements (with the clean you get ankles, knees, and hips and work your quads, hamstrings, glutes, hip flexors, core, and upper back/shoulders). However, there is some advantage in targeting specific muscle groups in isolation exercise, as it can allow you to reach hypertrophy (and muscle growth) with every muscle group. That's because these multi-joint movements will only be as strong as the weakest link in the chain. If I have weak glutes, my clean will only be as good as my glutes will allow, and my hamstrings or quads might not get a full workout.

There also is, as you've pointed out, an increased risk of injury in doing Olympic lifts because there are so many joints/muscle groups involved. Also, there is a learning curve with these lifts, and until you have the proper form down, you won't be able to lift to your max. I could see that being a big issue for younger recruits who might not have ever done Olympic lifts before.