NFL vs College Football: Which Brand of Football Do You Prefer?

In about 48 hours, the college football season kicks off with North Carolina and South Carolina butting heads on ESPN. A week and an hour later, the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens head to Mile High to face the Denver Broncos to start up the NFL slate of games that count.

Many of us watch both brands of football; some of us intently watch an equal amount of Saturday and Sunday football, while others have a true football love. The stories below reflect those who have true ties to one or the other.

The College Guys

Kalind

In discussing his love of college football, Kalind (you can find him on Twitter - @kalind_totals) reflects on a childhood rich with memories of Saturdays past spent watching college football with his dad.

"I have been watching college football for as long as my eyes could focus on a TV if you let my mother tell the story," Kalind said. "She says my father held me on Saturday afternoons while he watched."

His first college football memories come from watching the Florida Gators (his hometown rooting interest at the time) taking on Georgia in 1980. Watching the Gators lose on a late touchdown from Buck Belue to Lindsay Scott broke young Kalind's heart, but set in motion a lifelong love of the sport.

"The collegiate atmosphere is what stands out to me," he said. "The Swamp, Autzen Stadium, The Big House, The 12th Man, Death Valley. Gets no better."

He cites the evolution of offenses (from the wishbone to the current trend of the spread) and coach's constant pursuit of finding mismatches as other drawing points to his fascination with the college game over the pro version.

Due to his investing into the games, Kalind no longer has a particular rooting interest in any team but does consider the SEC his favorite conference to watch.

"I enjoy watching the SEC for the tradition in rivalries and the diverse approach to the game itself," he said. "Their ability to be a defensive minded conference yet have skilled enough offensive players to destroy opponents is what draws me to the conference. They have a complete balance of TEAM concept where neither side if the ball is solely responsible for winning games.

"The talent level is directly linked to the passion the South has for the sport from youth league up through college and the parents are just as dedicated and passionate as their sons who play the game."

Kalind's Saturdays are spent in his lab, notepad in hand with games he is investing in or planning on investing in, with remote control close by so he can enjoy the DirecTV package that he purchases every college football season to its fullest potential.

"The outside world doesn't matter much on Saturdays," he said. "I may come up from my lab for the occasional breather but for the most part this is a job I take seriously."

As far as surprise teams go for this season, he considers Boise State and Northwestern as teams who have a great shot at making some noise this season. However, he doesn't think Northwestern's schedule lends itself well to consistent defensive efforts, as Kalind believes they will be facing strong rushing attacks from the fifth week of the season onward.

And the championship game?

"BCS title game will be Oregon vs Georgia." he said. "The shoot out we have been waiting for has found itself in the Rose Bowl on Jan 6th with Oregon taking the last drive of the game to win and stop the dominance of the SEC to the tune of 41-40. This will be an explosion of two of the very best offensive teams college football has to offer and it will usher in what many college football fans have wanted for quite some time, a playoff system."

Nick

Nick doesn't subscribe to the DirecTV package like Kalind does, but he does take in a lot of games each Saturday (he sets up three televisions in his living room to watch as much live action as possible). The amount of games is definitely one of the draws for him when it comes to his love of college football.

"The volume of games is just so much higher," he said. "Without buying Sunday Ticket, the most NFL games a person could see at home in a given week is 5-6, but there are times where on a given Saturday there are that many games on TV at the same time. More games increases the chance that one of them will be awesome.

"College football moves faster, and it's more exciting. Because the skill level isn't as high, things can change so quickly and the volume of exciting/big plays is much higher."

Like Kalind, Nick appreciates the atmosphere that surrounds college football and its fans.

"The students represent a different kind of fan than what the NFL has," he said. "It's much cooler to see the student section going crazy than some 45 year old guy with his face painted. There's also the mascots, the cheerleaders and the bands. The fact that players can only be there for four years means that there is a freshness to things that you can't get in the NFL."

His earliest memories of college football stem from a few Big Ten teams making Rose Bowl runs (Wisconsin & Northwestern), but his true love of the sport (and of the University of Michigan football) started when he attended college in the early 2000s, even though his school didn't have a college team.

Nick's Saturdays in the Fall are full of TVs and games, dedicating himself to this setup from the moment games kick off at 11am CST till the late games end about a half day later.

When asked about who will surprise this season, Nick provided a conference who he thinks will sneak up on people.

"It's really hard in any sport, in the Internet age, to call things a surprise because everyone gets so much coverage and everyone has a "surprise" team," he said. "I think the Pac 12 is better than everyone gives it credit (even outside of Stanford and Oregon), so I think the "surprise" could be them being much better and deeper than anyone is looking at. UCLA, Washington, Arizona and Arizona St. all got votes but are outside of the top 25. Lots of talent on those teams."

In fact, he has a PAC-12 team in his championship game. Nick's title game features Alabama winning its third straight title over Stanford.

"If this was year one of the new playoff system, I would throw Georgia and Clemson in as well," Nick said. "Clemson has a history of shooting themselves in the foot which is why I won't pick them to make it outright, but they have a ton of talent."

The Pro Peeps

Brad


The youngest of the interviewees for this series, Brad's first memories of watching the NFL aren't much different than many of us born/raised in the 1980s.

"My earliest memory of watching the NFL is when I was a child, maybe 4 or 5," he said. "My dad showing me Bears games he recorded on VHS! Seeing Walter Payton's incredible runs."

Runs like that help define what Brad loves most about the NFL.

"The skill level of the NFL players and coaching is leaps and bounds better," he said.

In his lifetime, the game has changed and put more of a focus on player safety. For that reason, Brad's favorite part of the NFL has changed along with the times.

"It used to be the blind-sided hits and crack back blocks," he said. "Now, it's wide receiver routes. A beautifully run route to separate from a defensive back is beautiful."

The Sunday routine for Brad consists of a wake-up call around 10, pigs in a blanket about an hour later, which leads him right into game-time. Assuming they start at noon, the Chicago Bears dominate his airwaves, then it's the RedZone channel till Sunday Night Football comes on.

In the first potential cold-weather Super Bowl, Brad has a match-up of Peyton Manning's Denver Broncos facing Atlanta, with Peyton and company prevailing to win the Lombardi Trophy.

As far as surprise teams go, Brad went the opposite route of the others here and gave his surprise team to flop on its face this year.

"My surprise team this year is the Patriots. They will be bad...really bad," he said. "Tom Brady, for the first time in his career, has bum options to throw to."

Tim

Going to a Division I school isn't necessary for people to become fans of college football. In the case of Tim, it's one of the many reasons why he just can't get into college as much as the NFL.

"I never been able to make the attachment as a fan to any college team as it doesn’t seem natural and I can’t generate the same passion as the ones that did go to a Division I school," he said. "(Also), I think there are just way too many college teams and the product seems to get watered down."

His earliest memories stem from a team that he now despises - the 1985 Chicago Bears. Since then, he became a huge Dallas Cowboys fan (dating back to their dominance in the early 1990s). The national exposure and exciting players (citing the Irvin/Aikman/Smith triplets) sold him on the team that he continues to love.

So we already heard what he dislikes about college football. What exactly does Tim like about the NFL that makes it so special?

"The competition and parity are my favorite parts of the NFL," he said. "It seems like any team can win on any Sunday. And once playoffs start, throw out the records and watch a wild card team go on a run and take the whole thing."

Like Nick, Tim has a three television set-up that goes from noon till close. The DirecTV package comes in handy for this, allowing for Tim and his company to watch the games of their favorite squads. Getting the smoker or grill started beforehand is also a crucial aspect of Sundays for Tim, who treats his company to a variety of delicious cooked meats throughout the football season.

One surprise he believes is on the horizon for the 2013 season - a bounce back season from Kansas City.

"I like the Chiefs to be a lot better this year with a competent coach now (unless it comes to managing time or his timeouts) and a quarterback that is efficient and  does not turn the ball over," he said. "He is surrounded with some dynamic weapons and a coach that does a good job of getting the most out of his quarterbacks. Their defense will be the biggest question mark/downfall."

The obligatory prediction business - Tim has Matt Ryan as a legitimate MVP candidate, with Ryan leading the Atlanta Falcons to a Super Bowl victory over the Houston Texans to cap off the 2013-14 season.

And his final predictions?

"I like a couple of sophomore slumps to rear its ugly head with Wilson, RGIII and Luck," Tim said. "With more tape out on these guys now, I see defensive coordinators adjusting and slowing them down some. I think Luck’s style makes him the most likely to avoid the slump."

America's Scummiest Home Videos & Other NCAA Musings

Who would have thought that the focus of Final Four week would be more so off the court than on it? Some items of note:

• Did you see the Louisville guy (Kevin Ware) break his leg on TV Sunday? I didn't - and I have no intention of ever seeing the video of it! If you try showing me the video, I will not watch it. I accidentally saw a picture of it when Jen had it up on the computer or phone. I heard how bad it was, and I saw enough of the reaction of the players on both Louisville and Duke to know that I don't want to see it. I'm glad CBS didn't do what the broadcasters did 30 years ago when Lawrence Taylor snapped Joe Theismann's leg, and the coverage apparently showed slow motion replays of it non-stop. I can go without seeing the Ware injury.
  
• And to think college video from the week couldn't get more ugly to watch, there was the Rutgers incident. The video of the former Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice circulated, showing Rice basically playing a one-man game of dodgeball with the basketballs at practice (except he was only doing the throwing.) Even though this video has been in the hands of Rutgers personnel for months, it took world-wide exposure for them to fire Rice. Sadly, there is more psycho coaches out there that systematically mentally and physically abuse players from the lowest levels of sport all the way to the top. The more successful your team is, the more acceptable this abuse becomes (see Bob Knight). Unlike the others, Rice was caught on tape.
  
  And to those who say the boys should have stuck up for themselves, it's always easy for us to say this. We say this about victims of all types of crimes in society, particularly physical abuse and rape. It becomes a case of blaming the victim ("I would have stuck up for myself," many say). Yet when people get put in that situation, they are often so mentally abused that they don't feel like they can get out of the situation by defending themselves from such abuse. Instead of implicitly blaming the victims, we should sympathize with them and realize their situation was not the easiest to deal with. Many of these guys have professional aspirations. If they lose their scholarship, the road to getting the seasoning required for attention from the professional ranks becomes a much more difficult one. It's easier for some of these guys to take the abuse and gut it out than it is to risk the chance of getting kicked off the team for ratting on their abusive coach.
  
  It doesn't make it right for what coaches like that do - we just need to understand that it's not the easiest thing for these players to report their coach for such abusive behavior. It makes me think that all colleges, if they don't do so already, be required to film all of their practices for compliance purposes of player safety from abusive coaches.
  
• Two Pac-12 teams hired coaches. One just finished a Cinderella run as a 15-seed in the NCAA tourney with Florida Gulf Coast and moved to USC for an incredible pay raise (Andy Enfield). The other didn't even have time for the ink to dry on his 10-year extension with New Mexico (Steve Alford) before bolting to UCLA. More on Alford later.
  
• Oh, and I almost forgot about the Auburn football scandal, which has a little bit of something for everybody - robbery, bribes, murder. Ok, not murder. Just wanted to see if you were still paying attention. 

More college thoughts/rants

If you haven't heard a head coach in college football or basketball lie to you recently, you haven't been paying attention to any time they open their mouths or you have your television on mute.

Sure, there are some college coaches that might have some shreds of morality, but I'm not sure who those guys are. When you hear a guy has signed an extension with a school, all that means is....well, nothing. It doesn't mean the guy is going to stay with your school for 10 more years. It doesn't mean anything.

Most (if not all) of these big money contracts these guys sign includes a buyout clause jusssssst in case they get a better offer or opportunity somewhere else.

Did you take a look at all the coaching changes that occurred this offseason in football? It was a domino effect that seemed to touch about a quarter of the BCS-based teams. Then there were some coaches like Les Miles who helped get himself an extension by "showing interest" in the Arkansas job. I put that in quotes because it's debatable whether there was any interest or if it was merely a ploy to get more money.

Going back to Alford, who the hell signs a 10-year contract with a team (which he was lucky to get to begin with, considering how little Alford has done to earn it in his NCAA tourney appearances) and then bolts days later? On the Dan Patrick Show, he said he gets a lot of calls, but the call from UCLA is different because it's UCLA. Like hundreds of college coaches in the major sports, this guy is going to preach loyalty and committing to a team when he's literally a phone call away from being wooed away from that locker room.

It's one of the main hypocritical things that bother me about college sports, right next to the free labor that the NCAA and coaches get from the players and the dumb transfer rules that cause players to sit a year when they want to transfer to a new school.

Argue all you want, but you'll never convince me that these players don't deserve at least some form of payment? You say their scholarship should be considered their payment, but how many of these guys even get their degrees? Most of these guys in basketball, especially the NBA-caliber guys, are 1-2 year rentals who 

These unpaid servants of the NCAA are the ones whose talents create a product that is worth billions of dollars. And who reaps the benefits? The coaches who can bail to another school whenever they want. The NCAA administration folks, whose morals are even lower than the coaches.

And since when does a coach need a 10-year contract for a security blanket?

The most baffling thing about the Alford thing, outside of him getting an extension, was that he needed such a lengthy extension. Are these decade-long contracts really necessary for teams to show their "loyalty" to certain coaches or to prove to the coaches that they want them around for a while? Do you have any idea how many coaches in both college football and college basketball have been with their current schools for 10+ years?

Well, thanks to Wikipedia (and I know people can enter in information on that site at will, but to the best of my knowledge, the data looked accurate), I broke down both sports based on length of coaching tenure. Below are the percentage of coaches who have been with their current schools for a decade or longer.

College basketball: 52 of 347 (15%) - look at the top 10 list below. Unless you're a big time college basketball fan, good luck knowing more than two names on that list.

College football: 10 of 125 (8%)

And here are the numbers for new coaches to their respective teams entering the 2013 seasons of their sports:

College basketball: 35 of 347 (10%)

College football: 31!!! of 125 (25%) To think, I thought I was exaggerating with the quarter of NCAA teams changing coaches seemingly. Seemingly ended up being true...

I'm not sure if this data is consistent throughout the years, but that means if you picked a coach at random in college football, you're 3 times more likely to pick a team who hasn't coached a down at the current school as you were to identify a coach who's been at a school for a decade or longer.

Alford was at New Mexico for six years, so he was less than five years away from making it to 10. However, as is the case with many of these coaches, they get bored at certain jobs or get wooed by better ones.

No one is going to argue that UCLA basketball doesn't sound sexier than New Mexico basketball - no doubt, UCLA's history is hard to ignore. But you just signed a 10-year deal days before! You said you wanted to stay there and be there for years to come. Then you bolt at the first call you get from UCLA?

At the very least, if the NCAA isn't going to change its transfer rule with the athletes switching schools, they should make coaches sit out a year before transferring to a new school to at least show some consistency in its policy. However, that would require the NCAA to do something it is incapable of doing.

After all, if players who continue to get paid squat keep making these guys a collective billions, then why would they want to change anything? The system works best for those on the top of the food chain: the big conference adminstrations, athletic directors, coaches, and most importantly, the NCAA. Let the free labor reign.