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Nothing is worse in college sports than seeing a promising young athlete get a serious or recurring injury in a season in which that athlete chose to come back to their college to try and get that elusive championship.

The Florida Gators superstar quarterback Tim Tebow has won two BCS championships with his team, a Heisman trophy winner and has become arguably the best college football player of all-time in the minds of some people. It seemed like a no brainer that once the Gators won yet another BCS championship with Tebow behind center that he would pass on returning for his senior year and make the jump to the pros because there was honestly nothing left for him to accomplish on the collegiate level.

Well, surprisingly Tebow decided to stay for his final year in college and subsequently the Florida Gators are on top once again at number one in the country and could quite possibly go undefeated and win a third BCS title.

So far, passing on jumping to the pros has really worked out for Tim Tebow and all is good in Florida, but for reigning Heisman trophy winning quarterback Sam Bradford out of Oklahoma his luck has run out after returning for another season with the Sooners.

Coming into this season the Sooners were thought to be one of the best college teams in the country with the return of their superstar quarterback Sam Bradford. Expectations were high as the Oklahoma Sooners were BCS contenders once again, at least until Bradford went down in the first game of the season against BYU with an injury to his shoulder on his throwing arm.

After the injury to Bradford the Sooners went into a downward spiral as the team just seemed to crumble without Bradford behind center for Oklahoma. The Sooners have played six games this season and they have already lost three of the six they have played to BYU, Miami and arch rival Texas.

Now the Sooners are playing damage control as they are no longer ranked in the BCS and their star quarterback has re-injured the shoulder he hurt in week one in the Red River Rivalry game against Texas last week.

If Sam Bradford had decided to make to the jump to the NFL after his Heisman trophy year there is a good chance, if not an absolute certainty that the quarterback would have been picked with the number one pick in the NFL Draft, now he future in the pros is extremely uncertain as teams in the NFL will be second guessing picking a quarterback with injuries to his throwing arm.

It is such a shame when you see a promising young quarterback like Bradford pass on making millions of dollars like Matt Ryan of the Atlanta Falcons or Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions have and coming back to play for the shear love of the game and their college.

Injuries like these do nothing, but convince more young athletes to avoid risking playing another year in the college game and making the quick jump to the pros to make the big bucks. If we see more of these injuries in the future, college sports will continue to effected by athletes not wanting to risk millions just to play in the college game that doesn’t pay them a dime.