December 4, 2004
NCAA v. NFL Football
Growing up, I used to be a big fan of the Chicago Bears. Then again, they used to be good. But I can remember when my fandom of the Bears ended. It was when I started to get involved in College Football. Ever since the four (and a half) years at my alma mater, Purdue, I’ve believed that the college game is better than the pros.
Every game is a playoff game. In the pros, you have 16 teams per conference vying for 6 playoff slots, and only then do things begin to get interesting. Over a 16-game regular season, a team could go barely better than even to slide into a playoff slot (look at the NFC this year), and yet still end up the Super Bowl champion. In college, you have an 11-game (sometimes 12) playoff, where losing one game may be enough to remove you from national championship contention. Every game becomes more exciting, because as you go on farther in the season, every team you play is trying to knock you off. And in the pros, if your team just barely slides into that playoff spot, you’re not really looking forward to the playoffs. Since there’s such a slight chance your team could win the Super Bowl, you lose interest. In college, you get to go to your own bowl game, fighting against a team of roughly similar ability. When your team wins its bowl game, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the Orange Bowl or the Sun Bowl, it’s a bowl win, which is worth celebrating. In addition, this makes it important to keep tabs on teams in other conferences, because you could be playing that bowl game against a large possible number of different teams.
College football fandom is developed during the most formative years of ones life. For anyone who attends a major university, it is usually true that this time is when their personality really develops. As such, the experiences, friendships, and habits learned during college tend to stick. There is very little in life like stumbling to and from a college football game, yelling obscene chants at refs with a few thousand other disorderly students, storming the field and tearing down goalposts after a major upset, and watching as players who are truly your peers laying it all out on the field. Atmospheres like Michigan Stadium (aka the “Big House”), where every game hosts 110,000+ fans, are never found in the professional game.
The team you root for is what is closest to you. For professional fans, this is the major city you grew up in or near. For college, this is where you choose to attend. This is a major distinction. I grew up in Chicago, and many of the things that I know and love are tied to my upbringing there. But I chose to attend Purdue. As something that I chose, I hold it in a different regard, because I had control over that decision. While I didn’t choose Purdue for its football team, I did choose a large, Big Ten university partly because I wanted to be in the environment there. College Football is a part of that enviornment.
College athletes play with heart; for their team, their fans, and themselves. Pro athletes play for a paycheck. While this is not nearly as big a distinction as in sports like basketball, it will always be true. Most college football players will never make a pro roster. Most will never make a living from their football ability. They are playing for the love of the game and the camaraderie of their team. It’s for this reason that college games always seem to carry more emotion than their pro counterparts.
The rivalries are better. Almost no rivalry in professional sports is as major as Michigan v. Ohio State, USC v. UCLA, Oklahoma v. Texas, Auburn v. Alabama, Notre Dame v. anyone they play. Rivalries in most college football programs have traveling trophies. Purdue v. Indiana has been a rivalry lasting over 100 years, and now in nearly 70 years of playing for the Old Oaken Bucket. Ohio State can finish with a 6-5 record, but their season is salvaged if they beat Michigan. Losing in college football is never good, but losing a rivalry game is heartbreaking.
I love the controversy. College football generates much more discussion, debate, and controversy than the pros. For most people, this is not a positive thing. But as you may have guessed, I enjoy discussion and debate, and controversy sparks all of this. Since there are 117 Div 1-A teams in college football, crowning a champion is not an easy task. Ever since the invention of the BCS system, it’s only gotten harder. This year, we may have three major undefeated teams going into the bowl schedule, and it’s going to generate controversy and debate all the way until next fall. And at the same time, there is a fourth undefeated mid-major team (Utah), who may their bowl opponents and generate more controversy. The debates over the top 25 polls or which conference is the strongest is just the start. If you like to argue, college football will give you plenty of reasons.
I may travel all across the country throughout my life. For all that time, I’m sure I will have a lukewarm fondness for the Chicago bears. But my Boilermaker spirit will never die. I bleed Old Gold and Black, and will be (badly) singing “Hail Purdue” for as long as I am alive. Go Purdue!
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A few comments, it is very likely that, regardless of what you just read, BW has never seen the goal posts down at a Purdue football game. The last time one was successfully torn down was following a Purdue upset win over Michigan in November of 1996. I personally know this was BW’s freshman year, so it is possible he was there, though I didn’t think he went to games until sophomore year. After that game the university installed what I shall term “superposts”. The entire post is one solid piece of steel sunk in about 15 feet of reinforced concrete. They bend, they sway, but they do not come down under any circumstances. I have however been on the field with BW after a few other big wins (‘97 vs Notre Dame comes to mind) and though there was the feeling of jubilation that comes from toppling a supposedly superior opponent, there was disappointment among those of us on the field that, despite being home to one the premiere Engineering departments in the country, the students failed to bring ‘em down.
Second, forget 6-5, Ohio State could go 1-10, and as long as the 1 is a W over “that team from up north” all would be well in Buckeyeland.
Finally, the BCS is crap. I understand that you enjoy the “controversy”, but there be just as much discussion of who the real number one team is this year if we still used the old bowl system. This system not only fails to deliver a guaranteed undisputed National Champion, it messes with the phenomenal Tradition and Pagentry of college football which mysteriously went unmentioned in your piece….
Sorry folks, now that I look back on it, JRJ is correct… I mistakenly believed that we did topple the goalposts after the Notre Dame game in ‘97 and threw them in the Wabash river, but he is correct that it was the win over Michigan the previous year. Of which game I was unfortunately not in attendance.
However, we were drunk and disorderly, yelled obscene chants (F Colletto!) all game, and did storm the field afterwards. People were hanging off the goalposts trying to bring them down, but they were pretty well stuck…
Thanks for the clarification…
I love that Old Oaken Bucket game and I’m a Buckeye. One correction to your post: We could go 1-9 in a year with the one win being against M*ch*g*n and it would be a success.
I heard another distinction about college football (regarding Alabama, I think). Guy said, “I chose my college team the way a baby bird chooses it’s mother, it was the first thing I saw.” It was that way for me with the Bucks.
Great post. One thing I would add, your team will never move away.
Uncle Jack
I envy you. I never followed ncaa football, because…um…let me think..hmm..cuz UC Irvine doesn’t FREAKIN’ have a football team!!! There was no tradition or history to admire or follow. Instead of going to a stadium with uprights, we went to a dirt field and saw a bunch of students throw a ball back and forth in a fish net…Thats a sport? badminton? Good Lord!!!! And another thing..i grew up in Los Angeles, and guess what? We don’t FREAKIN’ have an NFL team!Anyhow, just wanted to share that with you. The BCS sucks! Jim Rome is hilarious! Go Colts! (Peyton’s my fantasy football player) and go L.A. Clippers!
Go Blue!
F*** the Bucks!
[exit with evil laughter...]
I agree with many of the things that BW2 said, however, have a few comments. For the record, I like the NFL substantially more than college ball.
I only know a handful of people that enjoy NCAA over the NFL. Of those, all of them went to a major university – Ohio St, Michigan, Nebraska, and Clemson. So there must be something about BEING THERE. But if you haven’t been there, it just doesn’t have that same kind of feeling. I went to a D-III school that played Division I hockey. Hockey is a big deal at Clarkson, but only nerds and Freshmen go to the games.
As far as the comment “a team could go barely better than even to slide into a playoff slot” – the same holds true for college football. Any team that is over .500 is bowl-eligible. There are something like 26 bowl games this year. 52 teams will get to go to a bowl game. In the NFL, 12 teams get to go to the playoffs. As far as sliding into the playoffs and
“losing interest” in the NFL, there is so much parity that ANY team can win on any given Sunday during playoff time. Plus, there have been two SuperBowl Champs in the past 6 years that have made the playoffs as a Wildcard.
Speaking of parity…
In college football, you see lines/odds as high as 35 points when you have SE Tennessee St playing at USC. Where is the excitement in that? In the NFL, you rarely see a spread in double digits, and even then there is always a chance of the underdog winning.
As far as getting paid…
The NFL is the only pro sport without guaranteed contracts. That means that any player can get cut at any time. Not true in baseball, hockey, basketball – they are getting their money regardless of what happens. And since a large number of NFL players never bothered to graduate college, they NEED to perform and stay on the team.
I will admit I live in Boston, home to the Superbowl champs 2 out of the last 3 years. So pro football is a pretty big deal around here.
Living in SoCal has made you forget that the NFL is bigger, better, and faster.
Markah, as long as you’re exiting I don’t care if it’s with laughter or not. READ THE SCOREBOARD!
Uncle Jack
I don’t have too much to add, just wanted to back-up Wilson on this one. I also went to a DIII school that didn’t have a football team and excelled in Hockey and Lacrosse (RIT). However, I have been a Buffalo Bills fan since I was 5 years old. Yes I was born in Buffalo but I still chose to be a Bills fan, and if you think you develop your “spirit” during your formative years instead of your impressionable years I would have to disagree. I have been a Bills fan for 27 years, through the bad times (today, 80s) and the really bad times (90s super bowl visits) I continue to be a fan. Wilson grew up in WNY but he chose the Redskins (his loss). I grew up in Buffalo but my favorite basketball team is the Celtics, so it really doesn’t matter where you grew up or where you chose to go to college – people pick favorites for lots of different reasons.