What do you like more? NFL or College Football?

Answer 1

College football is way better than the pros for a handful of reasons.
1) The athletes are playing much harder on every play. Granted they might be playing hard so that one day they'll get rich, they still are pouring their heart out week in and week out.
2) Coaches still hold the power. The NFL is run by the players, and we see what kind of behavior everyone has. The league's image is not as clean as it should be, and anytime a player does anything wrong he can't be punished by his team. The head coach of a NCAA team is basically the mayor. He is counted on to build and maintain a program. He must be an Xs and Os guy, hire and keep a good staff, plan productive practices around strict NCAA rules, recruit the right mix of players, schedule the right opponents and keep his players out of trouble all while keeping the institution happy. A lost art in the NFL is the head coach.
3) There are many styles of play. You get a wide array of offenses that change year to year. Sling the ball in a spread formation, run the tricky wing T, option out of wishbone...the game is so different from the vanilla "west coast" pro offenses.
4) Fresh faces all the time. With the 4 year playing time limit you get the chance to see so many new stars rise over a short period of time. As soon as the season is over there is the mad dash to find the next big star to hoist the Heisman trophy, and lead his team to the title. Carson Palmer to Matt Leinart to JDB, every team has that ? to replace their players every year.
5) Dedication to the team. I saw an interview with Larry Fitzgerald the other day that drives this point home even more. Here he is, a top 5 WR in the NFL, and he is sporting his Pitt gear. Once you graduate from college (or leave early for the draft) you are a part of that team for life. These athletes go back to their alma mater often, and stay involved. Can you think of many guys who will stick to 1 team for their whole career anymore? If Bruce Smith, Andre Reed and Thurman Thomas all left that Bills team at the end of their careers it proves there is no loyalty in pro sports.
6) Community Involvment. A football game in Auburn, AL is more than a game, it is an event. The whole town turns in, the alumni pile in to the city every home game, and it is one giant party in support of their team. Go find this in any pro sport. I guess the closest thing would be the Chowder Heads of the Red Sox. Let's not forget the huge travelling crowds that attend every away game. It is not unheard of for teams to bring 1/3 of a stadium's capacity on the road. I don't see that happening when the Seahawks play the Niners.
7) A more even playing field. Everybody has the ability to grab the best athletes in the nation. It is not slanted like the NFL draft. Why should you reward a team that plays poorly with the best player in the nation? And don't tell me that the underdog can't achieve-look at what Bill Snyder did with Kansas State. You can build a program and sustain it with hard work, something you can't do in any pro sport.
8) Better rules. The college game eliminates a lot of the "judgement" calls. You must get 1 foot down for it to be a catch. Period. No "he would have come down in bounds" garbage. They also give the team a chance to come from behind much more than the NFL. The clock stops on a first down, so the O can run to the line and get the next play off or spike it. If you don't get out of bounds on the pro level you only get like 5 plays per minute.

Answer 2

NFL is far better, and here are the reasons:

1) Competition. People like to tell you that college is not "all about money," that these kids play for "the love of the sport." This is flat-out garbage. Have you ever watched a college game? They take half the plays off (see any receiver that played for Notre Dame during Brady Quinn's tenure), and some guys are just in there because they're big. In the NFL, you actually have to be able to play football to get on the field.

2) Scheduling. In the NFL, unlike in college, every game matters, and anyone can beat anyone. Do you really want to watch Ohio State's "battles" against East & West Cupcake every year? Or would you rather watch the Raiders vs. Steelers last year, and actually be surprised because the little guy got one? College will never even be close to as good as the NFL without a playoff system, either.

3) Rules. There is not one area where college has better rules than the NFL. Even in overtime, where they give everybody a chance to score, they don't give everybody a chance to play. Overtime is still a part of the game, and that means all three phases of the game should be on the field. Sudden death is still better than offensive explosion.

4) The coaching. For the most part, coaches are products of their players at the collegiate level (see Larry Coker in Miami, Dennis Erickson anywhere he has coached); in the NFL, the players are products of the coaching. Who you have at head coach makes a difference, but not necessarily as much as who you have at strength & conditioning coach, or quarterbacks coach, or offensive coordinator. In college, all that matters is what players you recruit. In the NFL, the players actually have to fit into a system, and talent means nothing without brains.

Answer 3

The college game by far, because NFL greed has ruined a lot of the pro game experience, and the pro kicking game is generally too predictably good to make the difference a good kicking game can have at the collegiate level.

The real problem is commercials. Say in an NFL game there is 2:35 to go in the first half. The team with the ball runs one lousy play, then calls a time out, followed by 3 minutes of commercials. Then they run one more play and the 2 minute warning hits, causing, yup, you guessed it, 3 more minutes of commercials.

Then they go down and score. Yup, three more minutes of commercials. They then kick off to the other team and immediately afterwards? Yup, you guess it right again, 3 more minutes of commercials.

The last 2 1/2 minutes of an NFL half can take an eternity; I just don't have time, patience or interest in that. The college game on the other hand has not only the NATURAL flow that it should without so many rediculous commercial breaks, but the crowds are second to none because those in attendance typically have an allegiance to their university and just want to see some good football played.

Answer 4

I personally prefer the NFL. Neither of the colleges that I attended for my Bachelor's or Master's degrees had football teams, so I have no real loyalties to any college team and thus never got into college football. A neighbor got me interested in the NFL when I was young and I have been a fan ever since.

Answer 5

Both have their advantages, and I can't say I prefer one over the other. In the NFL, the game is faster and the level of play is higher. But in college, you have all the tradition and history, the rivalries like FSU/Miami and OSU/Michigan, great games like Boise State/OU, the 100,000-plus crowds, etc. The NFL can't match that. If I had to choose only one to watch this year, I honestly think I'd probably have to flip a coin. And even then I'd end up going 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5.

Answer 6

I absolutely hate college football for two reasons.
1) Superior teams/big programs - see ND- are allowed to schedule games against obviously much inferior competition or what the boxing world calls "tomato cans"
Who wants to watch a game where they outcome is predetermined?
2) If the game is in fact about sportsmanship and not providing a source of income to the wiseguys in 'Vegas , then college football would institute the football equivalent of the " the ten run rule .
If it's pretty damned obvious that one team is not going to win then it's pointless to risk injuring players by continuing to play the game. Call the game -other amateur sports do

Answer 7

College Football...college football is still a team sport filled with rich tradition and rivalries. NFL has turned into an individuals game filled with sponsors, general managers, billionaire owners, and multi-millionaire players who could care less about "team" play.

Answer 8

Major College Football. I'm not a big fan of UConn vs Rutgers.

Rivalries like:

Notre Dame vs Michigan or
Notre Dame vs U.S.C or
Notre Dame vs Michigan St. or
Texas vs Oklahoma
Texas vs Arkansas
Florida vs Florida St.

are the ones that I enjoy.

Even Notre Dame vs Navy or Notre Dame vs Army when you know thw history behind the games and how the two military helped to keep Notre Dame open during the WWII years by keeping ND on their schedule even though most of ND's recruits enlisted or transferred to the military schools.

NOtre dame was on the verge on bankruptcy back then and West Point and Annapolis decided to keep th Irih on their respective football schedules to help out the small catholic college.

Now that pendulum has swung the other way for Notre Dame, the priests never forgot the kindness shown to them during their hard times and that is why Notre Dame keeps one or more of the military schools on its schedule.

It has less to do with padding its schedule than repaying an old debt.

Answer 9

I have been a season ticket holder at LSU since 72 and during that time I also went to many Saints games. I find the college traditions and outings (tailgating is a ritual at LSU games) to be superior to an NFL outing.

Answer 10

Hands down the NFL. Better talent level, better games, and every game means something. College with the BSC BS has gone way downhill.