NFL vs. College Football

Now that the regular season has begun, it’s time to for a sports-oriented blog entry.  I love the NFL...and can’t stand college football.  Here are some of the reasons why:

 1.         Super Bowl v. College Bowls.  The NFL has ONE Super Bowl, preceded by NFC and AFC Championships and a sensible playoff schedule.  On the other hand, there are 32 college bowls and NO playoffs.  That’s as many bowls are there are NFL teams!  Come on.  At least college basketball has the March Madness bracket.  College football is a confusing mess.  Unfortunately the powers that be are too strong and have too much to gain by maintaining the current system and refusing to switch to a playoff system.

 2.         Mascots.  NFL has the Vikings, Cowboys, Giants, etc.  What do we have for college teams?  Terrapins (my school)?  Boilermakers?  Sooners (what’s a sooner?)?  Orangemen?  Gamecocks?  Cornholers – err.. Cornhuskers?  Ok, there are the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and the Duke Blue Devils.  But most of the college teams have pretty lame mascots.

 3.         Uniforms.  Why is it that the top college teams have the dullest uniforms?  Notre Dame – black with a simple gold helmet (at least they’re no longer riding horses – see above).  Penn State – dark blue, white helmet with a stripe (not even player names on the backs of the jerseys).  Ohio State – silver with red stripe on the helmet.  Michigan – lame Wolverine type design.  For every Florida State with a spear there are dozens of others like Nebraska with just an N stencilled on.  The uniforms look like those generic football uniforms you see in ads for TVs or beer.  Only the Cleveland Browns combine a lame name and a lame uniform.  They’re better off renaming themselves the Dawgs and at least putting a paw print on the side of the helmet. 

 4.         Quality.  Only the top college players get picked in the NFL Draft, so the quality throughout the NFL is far higher, played at a far higher level, than college football.  Everything about the NFL is high-tech, professional, and top tier.  College football, by its nature, is a distant second.  And any NFL player will tell you exactly the same thing.

 Finally: GO VIKINGS!