The death of an Alabama teenager during a high school football game has raised new questions about the safety of participants in America’s most popular college sport.

Caden Tellier, 16, died in hospital after suffering a “severe” brain injury Friday night during the game between John T Morgan Academy and the visiting Southern Academy in Selma.

Tellier is at least the fourth fatality among high school football players in recent weeks, following the deaths of three others related to medical emergencies — including heat exhaustion — in Alabama, Kansas and Virginia.

The principal of Morgan Academy, a religious private school where Tellier was quarterback, said the community was devastated by the teen’s death.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that Caden Tellier has gone to be with his Lord and Savior. Caden loved the Lord with all his heart and was a shining light every day he graced the halls of Morgan Academy. He was a student, a friend, an athlete and most importantly a follower of Christ,” Bryan Oliver said in a statement, reported by WSFA TV.

“There are no words to describe how we feel as a school community and family. Caden will never be forgotten for who he was and what he means to Morgan Academy.”

Tellier’s parents released their own statement. “Our boy, Caden Tellier, has met Jesus face to face. Everyone who knows Caden has known kindness, generosity and love, and true to his nature, he is giving of himself once more,” the document reads.

Alabama authorities said Tellier was injured during the school’s season opener and was taken to a hospital in critical condition, where he died. No further details were available Monday about the cause of the injury.

Tellier’s death came on the same day that the Guardian published an article written by two experts on youth sports participation questioning whether high school and college football was safe – or “morally sustainable.”

“It is a brutal fact that every time we watch football we witness players sustaining life-changing head injuries – damage that is essentially invisible to us because it occurs inside the helmet and skull,” said Professors Nathan Kalman-Lamb of the University of New Brunswick and Derek Silva of King’s University College.

“We know that every 2.6 years of participation in football doubles the risk of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), meaning that even children and high school students are systematically suffering potentially life-changing harm on the football field, a reality that we can reasonably characterize as a form of child abuse.

“As the Earth continues to warm, conditions on the football field continue to deteriorate and children continue to die, we are left with a simple and obvious question: is this sport morally viable?”

The professors are co-authors of The End of College Football: On the Human Cost of an All-American Game, due out in December.

Excessive heat is believed to have been a contributing factor in the deaths of three other teenage players after medical emergencies this month.

Ovet Gomez-Regalado, 15, fell asleep during a practice at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Kansas on August 14 and died two days later in the hospital.

His deaths followed those of Semaj Wilkins, 14, of New Brockton, Alabama, on August 13; and Javion Taylor, 15, of Hopewell, Virginia, eight days earlier.