College is Great

Unless you are Sam Bradford or Jermaine Greshman. While growing up I often questioned athletes when they would decide not to stay around for their senior year. I thought it spoke of the athletes character, and their understanding of what it meant to play for a team; which is why I admired Ricky Williams so much when he returned to Texas for his senior year. However, those were younger, more naive years for me, and now I understand the value of going to the NFL early, about 10-20 million dollars guaranteed money for Bradford.
While I wish Bradford and Gresham could have come back, and play another year in college to help out their school (even if it is terrible) that is simply not the case. The way it works out is, football is a dangerous sport, and injuries happen at every level. If you are the consensus number one overal pick, there is no reason not to enter the NFL. Gresham, while many people predict will still be a late first rounder, early second, has a season ending knee injury and was still on crutches in week six against the longhorns, has to be worried about dropping drastically in the draft since he will, not only be out of football, but battling to get back in shape to impress the coaches in the draft workouts.
The bottom line is, even though us college football finatics enjoy seeing good college football, it is still these athletes career. And a career that is typically a short, but well-paying one. And if the money is there waiting for you, there is no reason to skip out on it, or risk injury to come back and stay in college for one more year.