The perception of college football vs. the NFL

HartselleTider said:

Yeah they're proposing it in college also, and I don't like it.

As for the pro bowl, yeah it's deteriorated to a revolting joke of a game. But there was roughly a 10 year period when the Pro Bowl was a treat, the most brutally physical game of the season. It sounds like ridiculous exaggeration until you go back and watch some of those tapes, from the mid '80s to the mid '90s, parallel to the NFC's domination of the Super Bowl. The AFC was so embarrassed they used the Pro Bowl as a grudge match but the NFC was hardly willing to roll over and surrender. Reggie White and the NFC defensive line dominated the game every season, to the point it was dangerous to be a quarterback in that game.

Every season the Pro Bowl over/under would open at 41 and wise guys immediately would pound the under, down to 37.5 or 38. And it felt like stealing. You knew that if you had under the early number of 41 there was very little chance to lose on offensive merit. It would have to be defensive or special teams scores.

Check the scores from that era -- 10-6 in '86, 15-6 in '87, 21-15 in '91, 17-3 in '93. One game ended 23-20 in overtime but it was ridiculously misleading. The game was 20-6 NFC with a few minutes remaining, with virtually no offense all day, before a blocked field goal run back for an AFC touchdown, then Steve Young fumbled immediately to set up the tying touchdown. I felt like slamming the wall when I lost that under.

It ended in stunning fashion in '94 when Barry Switzer was NFC coach and treated the game like a lark. He told his players to have fun, while he was literally eating a hot dog on the sidelines. The AFC rushed for a zillion yards in the first half and my bet had no chance. I found out later that Switzer had treated college all star games the same way when he coached them, as a treat for the players and not to be taken seriously.

The following season it returned to normalcy, 20-13, but once Denver broke the long AFC drought in the Super Bowl the Pro Bowl grudge match ended and it gradually turned into the defenseless farce of today. The over/under number has doubled and nowadays the same guys who bet under jump in to wager over.

Any time I hear somebody insist the Pro Bowl has always been a cupcake glorified flag football game I have to laugh.

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I do find it hilarious your hatred of the Pro Bowl stems from gambling on it. Well played.

HartselleTider said:

That's one thing I can sympathize with as far as the NFL goes even if I'm not fond of what it's become.... neither of us like losing money.

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Well... why do you think Monday Night Football was invented?

So gamblers had another chance to zero out their weekend.

DiamondDust said:

Compared to college? How so?

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Billionaire owners holding municipalities hostage and forcing them to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into new stadiums so that they can reap even greater rewards. Ask folks in Cincinnati how they feel about building the Brown family a new palace.

BradtheImpaler said:

Billionaire owners holding municipalities hostage and forcing them to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into new stadiums so that they can reap even greater rewards. Ask folks in Cincinnati how they feel about building the Brown family a new palace.

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I know Cincinnati isn't happy, but that's there problem for listening to the Browns. I especially have zero sympathy for a city that feels like they should bend backwards for that family.

colbysullivan said:

It makes no sense to assume the receiver would have made the catch. Great players drop passes all the time.

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What do you think an appropriate penalty would be on a 50 yd pass where the defender tackles the receiver right before the ball arrives? Fifteen yards and a first down seems inadequate.

BradtheImpaler said:

Billionaire owners holding municipalities hostage and forcing them to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into new stadiums so that they can reap even greater rewards. Ask folks in Cincinnati how they feel about building the Brown family a new palace.

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I love pro sports, but this is dead on.

Bamabuzzard said:

Keep in mind I'm mostly playing devil's advocate here. So are we suppose to take that one game and going forward say from year to year, before any games are played, that the SEC is the best conference? That would beg the question "What will it take for the SEC not to be considered the best conference?" Not win the BCS title? If that's the case then that is a very high standard. A conference could very well be th best conference from top to bottom and not win the BCS title that year. Like I said earlier, I think there is some merit to what the haters are saying. And they do have some games to point to say "Hey guys, you might not be the best conference EVERY YEAR." There are so many teams in college football, even just taking into account the AQ conferences, that it will always be subjective as to who has the best conference. Because there's no way to line enough teams up consistently against each other to make a credible assessment.

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No, no, no.

You made the point I was trying to make. No need to be devils advocate because on the whole I agree with you.

But I think you take the WHOLE COMPOSITE the best you can. I don't think one game makes the point, that was just a counter to constant "well in the bowl games from forever ago" argument.

I don't think bowl games in and of themselves are great arguments. However, the SEC record over the last 6 years in them is nothing short of spectacular even if we drop the 6-1 BCS title game stuff. Every team in the conference has won a bowl game. That includes perpetual also-ran Vandy.

bamafaninOhiO said:

Notre Dame is in Indiana, thats actually Mid-west, correct?

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Yes, it is, but note that I supported that argument with the WHY regarding the heavy Catholic populations of CT, Mass, and MD.

It is in South Bend, Indiana last time I looked.

HartselleTider said:

I don't think anybody denies that big time college football is corrupt. That's kinda like saying professional boxing is corrupt.

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Does boxing even exist?

Who exactly is the heavyweight champ right now? There was a time you knew that even if you didn't follow boxing whether we're talking Ali, Holmes, Tyson, or whoever (admittedly dating myself a bit here).

Bamabuzzard said:

Unfortunately when the money that is involved (in anything) becomes more and more then the level of corruption increases accordingly.

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Don't tell me that - we have the cleanest politics in America in the history of the world (sarcasm intended obviously).

selmaborntidefan said:

Does boxing even exist?

Who exactly is the heavyweight champ right now? There was a time you knew that even if you didn't follow boxing whether we're talking Ali, Holmes, Tyson, or whoever (admittedly dating myself a bit here).

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Ain't that the truth. I have no idea who the heavyweight champion is, and haven't for probably a decade. Funny thing is, I used to follow boxing very closely.

contrary to popular belief, there is more fan loyalty in the NFL than you think; particularly up North. Granted, Panther fans, Jaguar fans, and some others, may tend to be more fair weather. But you can't tell me there aren't some college fan bases that are the exact same way.

We, as BAMA fans, tend to look at it in a more polarized way. We don't pro ball in the State. Never have. And BAMA fans have had a bit of a different run of things going way back, due to a polarizing point of view of BAMA from outsiders. BAMA fans love their team like no one else in American sport. But it's simply false to say that many pro fans don't feel a strong sense of love and loyalty to their pro teams.

Just because YOU don't think so, doesn't mean they don't.

BradtheImpaler said:

Ain't that the truth. I have no idea who the heavyweight champion is, and haven't for probably a decade. Funny thing is, I used to follow boxing very closely.

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I had to look it up, but the Klitchko brothers own all the various belts. But the WBA declares one of them their "superchampion" and some Russian guy I've never heard of as their "regular champion".

to find a non-Klitchko champ I'd heard of I had to go back to Shannon Briggs in 2007.

selmaborntidefan said:

Does boxing even exist?

Who exactly is the heavyweight champ right now? There was a time you knew that even if you didn't follow boxing whether we're talking Ali, Holmes, Tyson, or whoever (admittedly dating myself a bit here).

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Bert Sugar, a long time and legendary boxing writer, said it best about the heavyweight division: "The best heavyweight champions of this generation are Brian Urlacher and Ray Lewis".

His point - The athletes (At least the American ones) that used to get into boxing and the heavyweight division all play football now.

JeffAtlanta said:

NFL are still expected to coach though. The NBA and MLB are both player's leagues and the coach's job is primarily to manage personalities. The NFL is still a scheme driven league especially since player development has been devalued, so a NFL coach that just tries to manage personalities (e.g. several Dallas hires) won't go very far.

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I don't agree with this in the NBA - Coaches make a big difference in a playoff series. Regular season it's pretty accurate though.

First and most importantly the people in the northeast, meaning essentially New England. are a different breed, much different than any part of the country especially the South. It is a section of the country that is heavily Roman Catholic (Notre Dame fans mostly) and a section of the country that has preserved the various ethnicities, more so than anywhere else in the country.

College football was founded in the East and gradually moved to the Midwest and, had a lock on college football until an upstart team from the University of Alabama showed that football was also played in the South. As for the NFL it too was formed in the East and gradually moved to the Midwest as far west as St. Louis. It wasn't until after WWII that the NFL expanded to California. From its earliest days the NFL drew fans from the metropolitan areas, NY, Boston, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, etc. The football powerhouses in the East lost their hold on dominance and also had to compete with the new NFL teams. Since the most southern NFL team was Washington or Baltimore, the South pledged it's allegiance to its state university football teams. Also remember this was before TV and any kind of marketing hype, so the NFL was pretty much a non event in the South.

With the exception of Syracuse in the 1950's and more recently Penn State; the East has produced no real college football powerhouses, thus fans in these areas gravitated to the NFL. It wasn't until the mid to late 1960's that the NFL franchised teams in the South, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Miami and if you remember those franchises struggled to compete with college football due mostly to the South's love affair with college football and the fact that these 3 NFL teams put out a very poor product. After 45 years of the NFL in the South it still cannot compete with college football. IMO the difference is that the NFL appeals to a more regional fan base, while college football appeals to a particular state fan base for the most part. Look at the Tennessee Titans, their fan base draws from Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and Mississippi.

I am not a fan of the NFL for most of the reasons already stated. As for corruption, it exist at the college level and in the NFL. True NFL fans are just as passionate about their team as we are about ours. It simply is about everyone's preference and mine is college football in general and the University of Alabama in particular.

HartselleTider said:

As someone already mentioned, if the heavyweight champion wasn't one of the Klitchko brothers, I wouldn't know who the champ was..... and I'm a longtime fan of the "sweet science". Promoters and money have corrupted the sport (which is why I made the point in the beginning that I believe anytime you have millions/billions of dollars at stake in anything, it's going to be corrupt.) However, just because I know it's corrupt doesn't mean I don't still like the sport. There's very few things I enjoy watching more than a bout between two contrasting styles of boxers. The ol' saying "styles make fights" is true. It's the same in football. Different styles going against one another in certain matchups is what makes bowl games in college football exciting to me.

The heavyweight division has always carried boxing. If the heavyweight division is down, boxing is down.

Bert Sugar's reference to guys like Urlacher and Ray Lewis is brilliant. The best athletes don't pursue the sport of professional boxing like they used to, at least not big guys. I think Roy Jones Jr. was the last great athlete I've seen in boxing, and he was really a middleweight.

Nowdays, it's the welterweight division that carries boxing and has all the "star power". (Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, etc.) Guys like this can appeal to even the most casual sports fans, but for true boxing fans, they're almost all we have.

Most of the boxers nowdays that are worth their salt in a gym are either sons or nephews of past boxing legends, and they're all too small to play any other sport effectively. Most of them will max out at the welterweight division, or start out at the welterweight division.

When the heavyweight division is dead, boxing is dead.

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Which is why the next time I pay attention to the heavyweight division is when Deontay Wilder gets a title shot.