Choosing Up Sides

I’ve always been of the opinion that the NFL, and most other professional sporting leagues, is far superior to college football. In fact, one of the first articles I ever wrote for the Village Tavern was about this very subject. And I stand by this – as the Sports Guy pointed out a couple of weeks ago, 90% of the talk about college football involves some form of complaining about the system, the coaches, the media, the players, or the announcers. It’s quite possible that there’s no more corrupt industry in the United States than big-time college football. However, this year I actually got to go to one of Florida’s games (against South Carolina), and I have to admit, there’s very little in pro sports approaching that atmosphere. And I’ve decided that I might actually be missing something by not following college football at all. I’m not going to pick a team right now – since I may be going to grad school within the next 2-3 years, this would mean I’d either have to pick a school for its football team or become a sports bigamist – but I’ll at least pick a team to root for in each of the BCS Bowl games. So here it goes:

CONSOLATION GAME TO FINISH SOMEWHERE BETWEEN FOURTH AND EIGTH PLACE – BOISE STATE VS. OKLAHOMA:

Best reasons to root for Boise State: Although I hate gimmicky stuff in sports as a general, there’s something about that blue field that is just really cool, especially since it’s in Idaho and is therefore the coolest sports-related landmark in the state by default…underappreciated former Bears running back Brock Forsey went there (you remember him because he was briefly on the fantasy radar with a 150 yard, 3 TD game against the Cardinals, after Anthony Thomas and Thomas Jones both got hurt that year)…my ex-girlfriend is from Norman, and her parents are OU fans, so there's definite potential to root against Oklahoma out of spite…every year, there are 2-3 teams from crappy conferences that go undefeated or only take one loss, but get no championship consideration because of their schedule, and Boise State is one of these teams EVERY year – which completely shoots the “every game is a playoff game in college football” argument to hell – and if Boise State gets hammered, BCS apologists are going to get to maintain that smug, “see, I told you so, all of the non-BCS conferences are horrid” attitude…from what I know of myself I will definitely take Adrian Peterson three rounds too early in my fantasy draft next year if he has a remotely decent game while I’m watching.

Best reasons to root for Oklahoma: The coach apparently cut their stud quarterback for some kind of violation before the season, which is admirable, and they still made it into a BCS Bowl game…Tommie Harris went there, which would make more of a difference if he was going to be healthy for the playoffs…I always like Jason White for finishing college and predictably shredding his knees when he probably could have jumped early and been a first-day pick, and hardly anybody remembers how good he was in college now.

Pick: Boise State. Hopefully all of them are this easy.

CONSOLATION GAME TO FINISH SOMEWHERE BETWEEN FOURTH AND SEVENTH PLACE – LOUISVILLE VS. WAKE FOREST:

Best reasons to root for Louisville: Apparently Louisville has a ton of offensive firepower and does every year – now, I’m generally opposed to NFL teams that are constructed this way, but that’s because to win a championship in the NFL, you have to win three or four games against good teams in a row, at least one of which will probably be in a hailstorm, and it’s stupid to try to do this with offense (which is why nobody’s been able to since Dick Vermeil’s Rams, who were ridiculously loaded and got to have every playoff game in a dome) – in college, to win a championship, you have to be able to generate a ton of hype and beat every bad team you play by at least thirty points, so going with offense makes a lot more sense. Plus, most college football games are pretty much meaningless, so they might as well be entertaining…um, my mom worked around Louisville for awhile before I was born, and I’ve always thought it was a really cool-looking city when we drove through it…yeah, I really don’t know that much about either of these teams.

Best reasons to root for Wake Forest: Tim Duncan and Chris Paul always seemed like classy guys (and I still laugh every time I read this article about Tim Duncan), then again, so did all of the Wheaton basketball players I knew, and this didn’t carry over to the football team…Wake Forest apparently hasn’t had a remotely decent football team in forever, so it would be nice to see the one they have now finish well.

Pick: Louisville - I can only give a school's football program so much credit for producing two quality basketball players in fifteen years.

CONSOLATION GAME TO FINISH SOMEWHERE BETWEEN SECOND AND FIFTH PLACE – NOTRE DAME VS. LSU:

Best reasons to root for Notre Dame: Notre Dame is the closest consistently decent college football program to the Chicago area, and when they’re doing well, they’re treated like a borderline local team…even though Charlie Weiss probably has a lot of enemies between his Pats ties and his Notre Dame ties, he’s seemed likable every time I’ve heard or seen him interviewed…because of all of the older pro sports teams I’ve grown up with, I’ve always appreciated sports teams that had a lot of history...one of their backup defensive lineman from a few years ago helped Frodo and Gollum destroy the One Ring …former LSU star Michael Clayton was on my fantasy team this year.

Best reasons to root for LSU: Every team from the New Orleans area is still a little bit tough to root against, although I’m giving this trend a couple more weeks at best (I think I'll be completely fed up with it about a day before the NFC Championship game this year)…Brady Quinn has more than a little of the Derek Jeter/Tom Brady/Matt Leinert-pretty boy gene that makes you secretly hope they break their femur every time you see them play if they aren’t on your favorite team - it just hasn’t been fully realized because he hasn’t won a Championship in anything yet…the Freemasons, Illuminati, and/or five Jewish Bankers are apparently running a secret media campaign to make everyone forget that LSU won the BCS Title Game in 2003, so any major LSU win would be a serious blow to them.

Pick: Notre Dame, mostly because they feel too much like a local team to root against.

CONSOLATION GAME TO PROBABLY FINISH IN SECOND OR THIRD PLACE – MICHIGAN VS. USC:

Best reasons to root for Michigan: As hinted at earlier, USC backers routinely refer to their “National Championship” in 2003 without mentioning anything about LSU, which annoys me every time I hear it…Matt Leinert and Reggie Bush went to USC…The Trojans are slowly evolving into the Yankees of College Football, only it’s worse because being overhyped every year actually helps them compete for championships (if anything it seems to hurt the Yankees a little bit)…nobody will ever realize that the Pac-10 is not a great football conference if USC wins this game…Michigan got hosed by the BCS worse than anyone other than arguably Boise State this year – I mean, seriously, if you’re picking a one-loss team, how is any loss less significant than losing a relatively close road game to the best team in the country? Because it happened late in the season, or because people don’t want to see a rematch? Would it make sense to say that you don’t want to see the Bears and Patriots in the Super Bowl because they already played in the regular season, or if one of them loses in Week 17? Ugh.

Best reasons to root for USC: Carson Palmer (currently my fantasy team’s only real bright spot) and Troy Polomalu went there…David Terrell, Charles Rogers, and Tom Brady went to Michigan…my friend Beau goes to USC, and I usually pull for my buddies’ teams when they aren’t playing one of my teams and I don’t have substantial fantasy or standings-related reasons not too…having been raised as a Chicago sports fan, I instinctively hate all teams from Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin…if Michigan blows out USC and Florida wins a close one, we’re going to have a serious BCS mess on our hands.

Pick: Michigan, mostly because I want a serious BCS mess; it’s the only way things are ever going to get better.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – FLORIDA VS. OHIO STATE:

Best reasons to root for Florida: The Gators and Northwestern are the only D-I college football teams I’ve seen at home, and considering that Northwestern almost lost to Wheaton in hoops this year, I can’t count their game as a major athletic experience (the NU game I went to was after their peak in the 90s, and they really were never competing for a national championship even then)…it would be cool to be able to say that I saw the national champions play (and almost get beat) in person…my friend David Yates is going to Florida and was a huh-yuge Gators fan even before he did…the Bears have a ton of Florida guys right now, and a Gator win might be inspiring (quick aside on the Tank Johnson gun issue: I think it’s mostly a North-South cultural thing – up here in Chicago, if somebody owns three guns, it means that they’re probably either a criminal or a borderline psychopath, while in the South it just means that they don’t have enough free time or money to properly care for five guns. I also get the impression that Southerners aren't used to following every unneccesarily beauacratic and borderline unconstitutional law on the books unless they have personal enemies in local government or law enforcement.)…Florida’s one of those defensive teams that wins every close game but never really looks all that stylish, a lot like the Jim Miller-era Bears, and it’d be nice to see someone actually win a championship in something with a team like that…it would partly make up for all the recent years that the best team in the SEC got screwed out of a title shot (or actually won the game and was still not considered the champion), although college football has somehow managed to put what is probably the worst SEC champion this decade into the title game.

Best reasons to root for Ohio State: I’ve always kind of liked the Buckeyes since the title game against Miami, mostly because it was the prototypical example from that era of a deep, underrated Midwest team knocking off a ridiculously overhyped East Coast team that relied on five or six star players…they’re obviously the best team this year and therefore on some level deserve to win…my friend David Yates is going to Florida and was a huh-yuge Gators fan even before he did…Florida fans got a championship in basketball like, seriously, just last year…Mark might drive his car off of a cliff if Florida wins this game…although a lot of people are annoyed by it, I’ve actually always thought the “the” Ohio State Buckeyes thing was kind of endearing.

Pick: Florida, more for the BCS mess that will result than anything else.

Well, now I’ll know what to be watching for, even if I’m just watching the scores scroll by under a regular-season Bulls game. Happy New Year, everyone.

Random Thoughts on a College Football Weekend

I know we've already had one post on this blog that clearly outlined College Football’s relative inferiority to the NFL, but I spent a full Saturday watching games. I needed to make a post, and CF was on my mind. With that said, here we go (and, as always, in no apparent order):

WVU vs. VT:
I watched the first half of this game from my apartment and the second half from the upper deck of the student section at about the 15 yard line (oversleeping and not wanting to miss a minute of action while you walk over will do that for you). VT ended up winning the game by a final score of 34-17. Unfortunately, 2 first half turnovers by the Mountaineers set up scoring opportunities for the Hokies, and WVU could never catch-up. Tech was very efficient on offense, and I’m convinced Marcus Vick is for real. He compiled the following stats: 15/17 in completions for 177 yards and 2 TDs, and 12 rushes for 74 yards and another TD. While he may have received a lot of hype early in his career for being Mike’s little brother, he deserves all of the attention that he is getting now. (Note: I’m going to completely ignore all of the “attention” that the Mountaineer fans gave him this week and throughout the game for his past indiscretions. I’m not even sure that I would be able to properly handle myself if I was 19 and given pretty much everything I ever wanted, was a celebrity everywhere I went, etc. I’m not trying to excuse his actions or say that he shouldn’t have been punished, but I know the idiots around me during the game would have screwed up just as badly had they been placed in those same situations. For as much as we look up to athletes and expect a lot from them, we have to remember that they are still young kids and most grew up in much more difficult situations that I or most of my friends could imagine...stepping down off my high horse now). As far as WVU goes, the freshman Slaton had a great game. I hope we’ve found our tailback for the rest of the season because he certainly brought a dynamic (speed and quickness) that had been missing from our ground attack. He hit some holes and easily had the best day amongst the backs (11 rushes for 90 yards). The bigger, power backs had more difficulty with the Hokies speed on defense. (Speed, it’s the wave of the future). As far as the passing attack, WVU has to open it up a bit more. You can run the entire game and beat teams like Syracuse, Wofford, East Carolina, and even Maryland, but against the better teams, you have to have a little more balance. We had 20 more rushing attempts than passing attempts in a game where we were down the entire game. I’m not sure I understand the philosophy. It isn’t like the Quaterbacks have shown an inability to complete the pass either. Pat White, who I like a great deal, was 9/11 for 85 yards and 2 TD’s. Not that Rich would ever read this, but THROW THE BALL more. You may be an innovator in the sense that your team runs the “no-huddle” offense and you have some unconventional plays, but someone needs to catch you up to speed on the importance of the Forward Pass. Just for reference, It was a great innovation back in the 1906.

Alabama vs. Florida
I was torn in this game. Being a UGA fan, I wanted the SEC East to be well-represented. However, I hate Florida, my friend Yates attends Dental School there (reason enough), and I’ve always had an unexplained respect for the Crimson Tide. All that being said, I decided that I wanted the Crimson Tide to “roll,” and I was happy to see an easy victory over the Gators. Knowing UF fans, I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before the first fireurbanmeyer.com site pops up as the result of this game. Maybe the same people that did the fireronzook.com site could start working on that? Of course, even though he is the UF coach, I still like Urban Meyer a lot. His team may have not been completely prepared for today's game, but I think that the problem with the Gators today is something that I have been stressing all season long – they are overrated. Look at their schedule thus far; if they had anymore cupcakes they could rival Hostess. And please don’t give me that crap about beating Tennessee as justification for the Gators Top 10 ranking. Tennessee is overrated this year too (although they scare me this upcoming weekend now that they’ve settled on a QB). That game was in Gainesville, which is probably a 10 point advantage for the Gators. The outcome is probably completely different if that game is played in Knoxville or even on a neutral field. As much as I hate to admit it, the SEC East is down a little bit this year. Also related to the Bama/UF game, I wanted to send my best get well wishes to Tyrone Prothro for the Tide who had one of the worst looking injuries I have ever seen. It’s a good thing he is only a junior because I’d hate for a player’s CF career to end on a meaningless TD attempt when the game was well in hand (Mike Shula, what were you thinking? In the words of Bobby Knight, "You will never be your father!").

Vanderbilt vs. MTSU
Vanderbilt loses its bid to start 5-0 and officially usher in the Apocalypse. I only watched the last 45 seconds, but apparently my watching signaled to the Commodores that it was time to revert to their ways of old. Herm Edwards couldn’t have more poorly executed the finish to their last drive. Personally, I’m just glad the kick was blocked, so maybe the poor freshman kicker won’t be scarred for the rest of his career by thinking that he is the one that prevented Vanderbilt from being bowl-eligible for the first time since the year I was born (1982).

Notre Dame vs. Purdue
I confess that I didn’t really watch this game (I’d rather watch the Notebook on back-to-back nights than watch the Irish play – and you think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Maybe I even did...maybe I just said too much). However, I can still say without a doubt that Notre Dame is SO overrated. I know they killed Purdue, beat Michigan, and beat Pittsburgh, but the common denominator in all of these teams is that they are OVERRATED too. Look at their currentrecords, and it is clear that Notre Dame shouldn’t be ranked #13 for these wins. Pittsburgh has “a” win (as in 1). Purdue has only managed to beat might Arizona and Akron, and Michigan has only beaten Northern Illinois, E. Michigan, and now Michigan State (1 respectable win). USC is going to crush Notre Dame; Tennesse will too. Mark my words.

USC vs. ASU
While I normally hate PAC-10 football, I was looking forward to watching this game. Instead, both my local ABC stations decided that I would rather watch Penn State and Minnesota. Thanks guys. As far as USC, they are going to run the table. Having these close games is just a way to provide a challenge for themselves in the second half and to keep themselves in the national spotlight more (they got more attention after they almost “lost” these last 2 games than they received while they were killing teams early in the season). These kids go to school in Las Angeles. They understand the importance of publicity and press, and, just like celebrities, are going to do what it takes to get theirs. They run the table and win their 2nd national title in a row (not 3rd because LSU won the championship in 2003; the AP doesn’t count).

On the road with Volunteer nation...

As a Graduate Athletic Training student, my weekends often aren’t terribly eventful. I typically have some sporting event to work at where I’m holding water, taping ankles and waiting around for an injury to happen. It’s not at all glamorous, but I like it. Heck, I’d rather be working at sporting events for my job than sitting behind a desk all day. Then on Sundays I usually settle into my recliner to watch some football, and try to fit some studying in somewhere. So when I get the opportunity to go somewhere for a weekend and watch my team play in person, I take the chance and run with it.

So after my fourth test in four days I started the trek early Friday afternoon. Six and half hours is a small portion of my valuable time to get to see my Volunteers play arch-rival Florida. So I made the drive from Chattanooga to Gainesville to go to the event with my old college roommate David, who graciously got me a ticket to the big game. After watching the game together every year in college, this has become a tradition for us. So to finally get an opportunity to watch the game live, and in person, was a real treat; even if it had to come at the Swamp, in the middle of the Florida Student section.

On the drive down there I had a few experiences that really got me excited. I don’t know that there is really any way to explain the feelings of nostalgia evoked by being stuck in a traffic jam and looking to your left and right only to see a mini-van and a Jeep Cherokee decked out in Orange and White. It’s just great knowing that are in a community of friends, comrades in arms who are donoting their time to go support their troops (how can you pass up the soldier reference here; I mean, Kellen Winslow made his infamous comparison after losing to the Vols). You just feel a connection to the people next to you. If you’ve ever driven a Jeep Wrangler on a warm summer day with the top down, and seen another Wrangler on the road, you know what I’m talking about. You’ll be sitting at a light, see another Jeep and there’s a silent, measurable bond there. You nod your head, exchange your respect and keep going; it’s a small thing, but it’s strange how noticeable it is.


Later, as night was coming on strong, when the butt was getting tired, and all I wanted to do was get there quickly so I could take advantage of my buddy’s facilities, I saw it; the light at the end of the tunnel. And instead of pondering my eternal destiny, I realize that light I saw was not a halo, and it wasn’t a train coming the other way either; instead it was a faithful Tennessee fan who has his entire rear window lit up by lights that spell out a power-“T”. Inspired by yet another showing of team loyalty, I was able to continue my trip, and arrive at my friend’s facilities without an oil spill.

On gameday, we spent most of our time watching football and the Laguna Beach marathon. Yes, THAT Laguna Beach: the Real O.C. … normally a reality TV show built on the hype of youth soap-opera is not such a good idea. Actually, I probably shouldn’t say normally; 99% of the time this wouldn’t be a good idea. But, and maybe this is just justification for my own patheticness, in this case I find it entertaining. In any case, here we were, three guys in their early twenties, waiting for the big game, watching Laguna Beach and each of us, in our own way, coming up with excuses for watching the show. From my, “we don’t have to keep watching, but Jessica’s really cute, we should wait till you see her…” to Travis’ (my friend, and David’s roommate), “this is really well edited...” (it was Tarrantino esque), there we were, and there we remained. Finally, we got David and Travis painted up from waistline to forehead in Orange and Blue, respectively, and a large “U” on the chest of David, and an “F” on Travis (more on this to come). I donned my Tennessee orange baseball cap and Vols T-shirt and we started our walk to the stadium.

The trip to the stadium was what I expected; people cheering when they saw my friends, and then immediately swearing, yelling and booing when they saw me. We must have been an odd site to the simple-minded Gator fans; die hard Gators walking side by side with a Volunteer. I mean, let’s be honest, most of the drunken Florida fans had enough trouble telling if David was a Tennessee fan or a Florida fan. Painted in orange with only a “U” instead of a more telling “F” on his chest, fans frequently questioned him and often threatened him when they saw him associating with me. But let’s be honest, how much can you expect from intoxicated co-eds from redneck country Florida; who often thought screaming “Go home” at the top of their lungs to a Tennessee fan was not only a display of school spirit, but pretty clever (though, not nearly as neat as digital watches).

And I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a bit scary being, by my count, one of three Tennessee fans in the entire quarter of the field. I mean, as one of my professors recently announced to the class about me, “now Mark’s not a very muscular guy”… To say that the general status of most of the fans was sober, would be a slight exaggeration. But to their credit, the Florida fans were only slightly obnoxious and inhospitable about the fact that I was cheering for the Vols (but being in the Dental School block of the stands might have helped more than a little bit with this fact…).

A real highlight of the game (besides the lone touchdown we scored) was watching Travis and David unknowingly stand next to each other as they spelled “FU” to all onlookers. All the while they had grins on their faces. Priceless…
As far as “the swamp” goes, I wasn’t that impressed. I mean, setting an attendance record not only for the school, but for the entire state of Florida at just over 90,000 fans is hardly impressive for a UT fan. I mean, I intend to write an article exclusively about the much more impressive Neyland Stadium after my first game there when Tennessee and Georgia face off later this season. I’d also like to point out that alternately shouting, “Orange, Blue” is not terribly awe-inspiring, nor is it very creative. I must admit, however, that “it’s great… to be… a Florida Gator” is a catchy song… FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!

And now, we come to the most depressing portion of my account; the outcome. We lost, I won’t say very much more than that. Special teams killed us, or offense is terrible, we only gave Clausen two series to play after giving him the start, and oh yeah, our offense sucks. I left the game very confident that, as they currently stand, BOTH teams are over-rated. I also was NOT impressed by Urban Meyer’s offense. If he’s such a great coach, who come his team got penalized every other play? I could ignore this fact, if in fact the offense had been either productive OR creative. Unfortunately for Gator fans, it was neither. They mostly just ran up the middle, and got sacked a lot.

And so, after tasting the bitterness of defeat, I could have tucked my tail and ran home. While I won’t say I did nothing to lick my wounds (after all, I went home and watched some more Laguna Beach episodes), I did not hide from the Tennessee defeat. The next day, when it was time to head home, I once again donned my Vols cap and made sure that every car I passed on the way with a Gator on it could see my hat. Tennessee didn’t get where it is as a program by being ashamed. And so, I saddled up for another delightful trip on the road with Volunteer nation. Yeah we had lost, yeah it was an ugly game. But I was there, I supported my team, and I loved every minute of it…

Is there any other football?

I tried to watch the whole Ohio State-Texas game this weekend, I really did. Unfortunately, I have a serious problem when it comes to college football: the whole time I’m watching it, I can’t help but thinking how much more fun it this would be if I were watching a real football game. By this I am, of course, referring to the NFL (Ha! And to think some of you thought for a second that I was going to write about how entertaining soccer is. Well…I wasn’t. If I did, it would be a pretty short column. But seriously, folks….). Where was I? Oh yeah, the NFL. Anyway, by the third quarter I switched the game off and started playing Madden. This is because even a video game involving an imaginary Bears dynasty is far more engaging then watching one of the six or seven college football games of the whole year with legitimate national title implications.

As a person who views the first week of the college football as a mere appetizer that is best skipped to fully enjoy the coming football feast, it’s somewhat distressing to me that some people actually find the college game more entertaining. So, in order to put this foolhardy notion to rest once and for all, here are the reasons that the NFL is superior:

1) The players are bigger, faster, and smarter.

This should be pretty much a no-brainer, since the NFL is basically a collection of 32 alumni all-star teams. Because of this, NFL play is faster, cleaner, and smarter. How many times have you seen an NFL player field a kick return five yards deep in the end zone, run out an stop on the goal line, then retreat back into the end zone and narrowly avoid a safety? I’ll tell you this much – you wouldn’t see the same guy do it more than once. This isn’t a one-time occurrence in major college football, either: last year I swear I saw someone on a ranked D-I team run out of the end zone on a kick return – only to take a knee on the two yard line.

2) The coaches are better.

Yes, I know that there are a lot of legendary coaches in college football, and there have been some downright horrible coaches in the NFL, but consider that two of the most legendary coaches of the last fifteen years, Pete Carroll and Steve Spurrier, were mediocre coaches in the NFL (and I’m being incredibly gracious to Mr. Spurrier right now). Meanwhile, Charlie Wies, who wasn’t even a head coach in the NFL, appears to have turned Notre Dame around in less than a year. Thanks to better players and coaching, you don’t see nearly as many games in the NFL decided by safeties, blocked kicks, fumbles, etc, at least not once you consider how many more close games there are in the NFL. By the way, the officials are better, the cheerleaders are better, and the Jumbotrons in most stadiums are better, too.

3) In order to repeat, you have to win the Championship for two years in a row.

Honestly, if I read one more person who mentions USC’s “three-peat” attempt, I’m going to snap my laptop in half.

****BREAKING NEWS********

LSU won the National Championship game two years ago. I swear, seriously, I can remember it. In the words of Mugatu, “Am I the only one who notices this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” As near as I can figure, USC ran the table in a good (or at least highly visible) conference and won the 3rd place game, which is apparently good enough to be considered Champions. Unless you’re Auburn.

Here’s the thing: by definition, you can’t have two Champions from the same year. The only difference between the 2004 Auburn and 2003 USC teams is that USC was picked first in a poll. Apparently, if you want to win in college football, generating lots of hype is every bit as important as actually winning football games. This brings me to my next point:

4) The NFL doesn’t have too many teams (well, at least not by a huge margin).

Don’t get me wrong. There’s something appealing about the fact that there’s a major sport with 117 teams. Except that nobody could name off all of them without somehow cheating. And if you’re one of the teams that people have a hard time naming off, what exactly do you think your chances are of generating enough hype to make it into college football’s two-team playoff even WITH an undefeated season? At least college basketball has devised a playoff system under which most decent teams will have a chance to win it all. Maybe I’m a softie, but I feel like 2 playoff teams out of 117 places a little bit too much emphasis on the regular season. (Yes, I have heard the “every game is a playoff game” argument for college football. This holds up pretty well until you realize that a playoff game should involve high stakes for both teams involved, and that any team that wins every playoff game it is in should be crowned champions in any sport).

5) The NFL has a salary cap.

This isn’t so much in reference to the fact that I find NFL players pretending to be working professionals funnier or more endearing than NCAA players pretending to be college students, nor am I implying that more than fifteen or twenty D-I schools actually pay their players. However, take a look at some of tonight’s scores (we’ll just look at the top 25 and schools from big conferences since everyone else’s season is already over):

Fresno State 42, Weber State 10 (at HALFTIME)
Texas 25, OSU 22
Notre Dame 17, Michigan 10
Virginia Tech 45, Duke 0
Florida State 62, The Citadel 10
Purdue 49, Akron 24
California 56, Washington 17
Oklahoma 31, Tulsa 15 (3 Field Goals, a TD, and a missed conversion, since I know you were wondering)
Boston College 44, Army 7
Texas Tech 56, Florida International 3
Wisconsin 65, Temple 0
Auburn 28, Mississippi State 0
Michigan State 42, Hawaii 14

In the first 8 weeks of the NFL season last year there were 14 games decided by 21 or more points (out of 116 games). (I just got really happy when I realized there are going to be 115 more NFL games in the next 8 weeks.)

I feel like I’ve made my point.

By the way, I included those two close games to illustrate another point. Two weeks into the season, and Michigan and OSU are D-U-N Done in terms of winning a title this year. Why the hell would I follow a sport where my team can be mathematically eliminated one-sixth of the way through the season?

6) There are only one or two true “run first” QBs in the NFL.

At first, you would think this was a negative, as you associate the scrambling Quarterback with exciting runs (a la Mike Vick), RB-like tackle breaking (think early Culpepper), and the ability to buy an impossible amount of time in the pocket (McNabb). The problem is, non-NFL ready QBs who think of themselves as scramblers are usually just plain ugly to watch. Even Vince Young (which sounds like the name of the new frontman for Whitesnake), who is supposed to be one of the best players in college football, was pretty tough to watch until Ohio State shut down the running game and he went to his arm (which is what he should have been doing all along). Troy Smith and dozens of other D-I QBs fit this mold, and for every breathtaking play there are about five horrific ones (like Young’s interception in the second quarter). The reason college teams love guys like this is that while savvy QBs who play within themselves and know when and when not to run are ideal during the grind of an NFL-style playoff, where you have to beat two or three great teams in a row and can’t afford to have your Quarterback kill the team. However, these athletic, scrambler Quarterbacks accomplish goal #2, which is to generate a ton of hype, since they can be billed as a ‘weapon unlike anything the game has ever seen.’ Most people will forget that Randall Cunningham was playing that style better than anyone currently in the NFL or NCAA back in the eighties.
Plus, the few guys who are able to play this style effectively eventually make it to the NFL, and by then they’re usually a little more polished.

7) The NFL hasn’t made any efforts to destroy the last remaining legacy of Native American culture in their original homeland.

I feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory.

8) Fantasy sports work twice as well for the NFL as for anything else, including college football.

Let’s face it: fantasy football rocks. Thanks to fantasy football, most NFL fans are very knowledgeable about every team in the league, whereas as recently as the late 90s, people really only knew about the teams that were billed as contenders, their favorite team, and the teams in their favorite team’s division. It’s also a good way to keep in touch with eleven or twelve of your best friends indefinitely, especially if you don’t mind alienating everyone else in your life for half of the year. The thing is, only in football does every team play more or less once a week, which makes the head-to-head competition – the very core of its addictiveness to guys, who are competitive by nature for some reason – not only feasible, but also natural. And the NFL has the perfect number of players for a ten to twelve person league. To do a decent college fantasy league, you would probably need about thirty-five teams, and in order to be remotely competitive everyone would have to do way more research than you and your thirty-four closest friends are willing to put into a group hobby. Plus, thirty-five teams are too many for a fantasy league built around a twelve-week season…especially if you have a two-team playoff. Hey, maybe you could have random strangers vote on who should be in the championship, then it would be just like college football!

The sad thing is that more than half of these problems would be solved immediately if the NCAA adopted something as basic as an eight-team playoff (heck, even switching to a four-team playoff would get me interested in the sport), but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen soon, despite the fact that almost everyone thinks it would be a good idea. Would the NFL abandon a proposal that its entire fan base was clamoring for? That question I leave to you.