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Bradford: Why I came back to Oklahoma for ’09

Sooners quarterback skipped draft to compete for another national title

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Sam Bradford and Oklahoma fell short against Florida in the national championship game.
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By Sam Bradford, as told to Dave Curtis
updated 3:50 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2009

Second thoughts? I haven't any, and I can honestly say that. I felt when I made my decision to come back, no matter what I decided, I was going to need to stick with that decision. Since the announcement, I haven't looked back, not one day. I'm only looking forward, trying to help the team win another Big 12 championship. And I'm on track to graduate next spring, in business, and that's something I want to have.

As far as things I've been able to do since I've been back, well, I've played a lot of golf. I might have been able to do that anyway, but I've really enjoyed playing with some of my teammates. We went out to San Diego at the end of the spring and played six rounds. One was at Torrey Pines, the South course, where Tiger won the U.S. Open in a playoff. I played not bad, not great — 78, with a double bogey at 18.

The other cool thing was getting to go down to the Davey O'Brien banquet in Fort Worth. I got to talk with Joe Theismann there, which was really cool, considering he was such a great NFL player. I don't want to reveal everything we talked about, but the big thing he hit on was what it takes to be a leader and how I needed to do anything it took if we want to be more successful at Oklahoma. For him to share his wisdom with me meant a lot.

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I've already talked about why I came back, but I know people are going to say, "Well, you're coming back because you guys lost to Florida." The Florida game didn't factor in at all. If you let one game totally affect your decision, your decision probably is not made on all the right factors. I didn't think about that game once when I was deciding what to do.

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But now, I still think about that game from time to time. I think about all the plays that got away, some of the mistakes, and the ways we could have won that game. That game still hasn't left me. We learned that night that it all boils down to a couple of plays. It's not anything major. We just need a little better execution. It's a very thin margin between winning and losing when you have two great teams and so many great players in a game like that.

When you lose in the national championship, there are a lot of different feelings. The team accomplished a lot last year. But the biggest thing is that it is frustrating knowing how close you were to winning something that you wanted as a little kid. The only thing you want to do is get another chance at that.

So that's what we've been doing and thinking about all offseason. As a team, especially in the winter, we worked about as hard as we could. Like I said, we know what it takes to get there. This time, we want to end the season on a good note. The offense made a lot of progress. If you saw us Day No. 1 of the spring and then you watched us Day No. 15, you wouldn't have recognized us. Our timing got better, and the new guys got in and learned the system .

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Our line, especially, got a lot better, and that gives everybody a lot of confidence. We had a great line last year. A great line. All those guys are going to play in the pros. So with the new guys coming in, I just wanted to get some chemistry with them. I absolutely need to trust the line. The minute you start not trusting is the minute some of your decision-making ability goes down.

Instead of thinking of reads and the stuff you should be focused on, you're thinking of other stuff. That can get you in a lot of trouble. So we spent a lot of time learning how to play with one another, communicating better, and just trying to get it together for two-a-days.

I'm already getting asked about next year and whether I'm going to come out early. It doesn't matter much to me now, where I might get picked or what that might hold. Who knows what will happen by then? I know this time around, I could never really see myself leaving Norman. I was just checking things out, making sure it was the right decision. I don't know yet what the right decision will be after this season.

© 2009 Sporting News

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