re: Does This Change Anyone's Stance On NFL vs College?

To people saying "the NFL has better players" or "the NFL has more competitive matchups."

No shite. It's the NFL. It's professional football. It's their job. There also aren't 130+ teams that we must filter through to find the champion.

What makes college better FOR ME is multilayered. It's not just the games. It's a given that these are college kids with other responsibilities outside of football. They aren't pros. But you don't just take the game itself. What happens on the field isn't the only variable that contributes to the product as a whole. The atmosphere, bands, tailgating, pregame, school pride, state pride, seeing the same folks you sit next to every game, the constant changing of players, recruiting, the regionality of the game, the players you watched or played against in high school, the fact that the game is played not perfectly (which adds to its intensity) but always with high emotion, the huge swings in momentum as a result, the creativity and variation in offenses, even the arguments that the system perpetuates about who should be ranked where. It's just a more layered and dynamic sport for me personally.

Now, the NFLer would counter with the fact that it is a more perfect form of football, and can be layered with draft analysis and fantasy football, and that's true, but that's just not my thing. And I agree that the post-season is much better. But I hate that when I turn on what should be a great regular season matchup the stadium is half full and dead. I hate that for the most part teams are pretty equally matched and offenses are pretty much the same across the board.

I agree with others that it's almost two different sports. Apples and oranges. There are pros and cons to each. There are just more pros for me with the college game. Way more, actually. I rarely watch a full NFL game with undivided attention.