The NFL or NCAA – Who Has It Right?

It is late August, so that means only one thing when your baseball team is out of playoff contention – Football.  This always brings the interesting debate around the country, college or the NFL – what game is better.  Both sports are so different, which is why I love both.  Alright, enough of this intro, let’s get into what you came here for – the actual debate.

History

The NFL has teams such as the 49ers, Cowboys, Steelers and Packers who have tremendous history.  However, they can’t compete with USC, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, and Notre Dame.  The first college game took place in 1875, which is almost 50 years before the NFL was founded in 1920.  There are hundreds of college teams to choose from and discover their history as opposed to the 32 in the NFL, which includes numerous expansion teams in recent memory.

Advantage: NCAA.

Stadiums

This point comes down to your preference rather than factual information.  Are you one that loves the history of a stadium or would you rather a corporate municipal type stadium.  The NFL stadiums have more comfortable seats, bigger aisles, HD monitors and are newer.  College stadiums have hard bleachers, skinny aisles and are less fan friendly.  However, the college stadiums are much more unique with tons of history.  You will not see that with NFL stadiums.

Advantage: NFL.  (NCAA would have huge advantage if stadium seats were stripped to be all chair backs).

Play Calling



Do you see this in the NFL?



The NFL is considered to be a copy cat league, while college football is constantly changing its play calling.  In the NFL you see mostly the same thing – an ace backfield, 3 wideouts, a tight end.  Sometimes you see this same variation in a shotgun.  There is absolutely no variation at all.  At the college level and you can see all kinds of variation.  Like running football?  There is the power option at Georgia Tech.  Like a fast paced spread option?  Look at Auburn and Oregon.  Like to see a lot of passing?  Go to Oklahoma St and Texas Tech.  Like an I-formation?  They run that at Alabama.  Like the pistol?  Arkansas runs that.  Like a balanced attack?  That is what Oklahoma runs.  College football is the total opposite of a copy cat league, teams are constantly thinking of new ways to attack.  The NFL is constantly stealing ideas from college – where do you think the Wildcat came from?

Huge Advantage: NCAA.

Fans

Uh oh NFL fans, we have another category here that is favoring the college game.  This one is a landslide.  NFL stadiums are filled with white collar corporate people who are afraid to make noise at a game.  At college games, half the stadium is filled with college students.  There are two, not just one, two stadiums with the nickname with Death Valley.  They have a stadium named for their “12^th Man.”  Kansas City is the only city in the NFL that can come close to this, but there are multiple college stadiums like this.

Huge Advantage: NCAA.

Players

Finally, the NFL has a huge advantage.  The NFL boasts the best football players in the world and it’s pretty deep as there are only 32 teams.  Compare this with the 100+ teams in college football with a high turnover rate, the NFL wins this easily.  The only thing you can say about these future accountants, insurance salesmen, etc is they really play with a passion that is unparalleled in the NFL.

Huge Advantage: NFL.

Rivalries



The Iron Bowl is one of the
top rivalries in Sports



Top rivalries in NFL include Steelers-Ravens (Browns), Cowboys-Redskins.  These games have included some of the best players that have ever played and some of the best games ever played at the NFL level.  However, college boasts Auburn-Alabama (Iron Bowl), Texas-Oklahoma (Red River Rivalry), Florida-Georgia (World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party), etc.  These games not only have the history that the NFL games have, but most of these games are played with a National Championship or major bowl game on the line.  The NFL games never have that level of intensity unless they are in the playoffs.

Advantage: NCAA.

Playoffs

This is one we could look back on in a few years and flip the scripts here.  College football currently has one of the most corrupt and wrong ways to determine a national champion – a “computer”.  The best two teams based on these rankings play for the title game.  This can lead to controversy (see 2005: Auburn going undefeated and being left out).  However, in 2 years they will create a 4 team playoff, which I think eventually gets to be an 8 or 16 team playoff and watch out.  That would be runner up to March Madness in terms of a playoff system.  But anyways, right now the NFL has the best playoff system going.  12 teams make it, single elimination – win and move on.

Huge Advantage: NFL.

TV

Without ordering NFL Sunday ticket you can only watch possibly 4-5 games a week with the NFL.  This is totally not the case with college football.  Not only do you not need to order a special package but there are always 3-4 games on National TV at each time slot on Saturday.  One game is a blowout, no need to worry, just switch to the other.  You don’t have this luxury with the NFL as you are just stuck with whatever game CBS/Fox decides to air for you.  Oh, did I mention college football is literally on ESPN every day of the week besides Sunday and Monday.

Huge Advantage: NCAA.

Overall

I think its pretty clear to me what the better game is – NCAA.  5-3 in favor of the “amateurs”.  The passion, history, uniqueness make the college game a far better game.  See you on Saturday.  War Eagle all Day.

Posted in: Matt,NCAA