Cincinnati Enquirer sports columnist and WLW radio sports-talk host Paul Daugherty admits this morning he’s a turncoat.
Once an unabashed NFL fan, Doc has switched its allegiance to the college game. Maybe it’s years of watching the Bengals. Maybe it’s the resurgence of UC football. Either way, Doc writes that he now finds the collegiate version superior to the play-for-play sport.
Excerpt:
After 40 years of Any Given Sundays, I’ve been seduced by the Saturday night (and Thursday and Friday night) lights. College or pro used to be a debate full of scholarly argument. Now, it pretty much boils down to this:
Self-important League Of Rich Men?
Or Jacquizz Rodgers?
I’ll be watching Oklahoma sooner than later. And Oregon State, which dumped then-No. 1 Southern California last Thursday night, thanks partly to 186 rushing yards from Rodgers, who’s small enough to dance inside a glove box. I’ll watch Ohio State play at Wisconsin because the Buckeyes have unleashed freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor and now, impossibly, are back in the national title picture, at least for a week, because … Four of the top 10 teams lost last week.
College football has become a delightful game of roulette, no longer the province of the rich and traditional. It is possible for Mississippi to beat Florida. It is possible for unbeaten Vanderbilt to host Auburn and the ESPN “College GameDay” crew. What will the Commodores show Lee Corso Saturday? The statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt? Saturday occasionally proves anything is possible. Sunday has become a parade of teams running the same stuff, a conga line of diva receivas, a league so dominated by quarterbacks, its best team in the past decade is instantly ordinary when it loses its Tom Brady.
As for me, I love both. Each has its charms. I find the BCS maddening, but admit that these days all NFL teams play relatively the same. I like that any NFL team (except for the Bengals, of course) can rise up and beat any other NFL team, while for the most part the college powers remain the college powers. Then again, nothing beats the charged atmosphere of a college football game.
What do you think? Would love to hear your preference.
I’m a diehard football fan but given the choice, I would take a college game over the pro game any day of the week (and ESPN is making sure that is any day of the week).
There is so much more passion in every aspect of the college game. I’m a Green Bay Packer fan but I don’t get to go to all of their games. In college, you have your selection of hundreds of programs you can follow with players and coaches who are more likely to interact with their fanbase.
In the pros, you lose a game and you go to work the next day and are over it for a while. In the college game, you are left to think even years down the road, why didn’t he just knock it down!
In college, the stadiums have nicknames (The Swamp, Death Valley, etc.); in the pros, the stadiums have corporate names (Invesco Field, Lucas Oil, etc.).
In college, from week 1, you are in the playoffs. If you lose a game, your national title hopes are sunk. In the pros, you can have a team with 6 losses winning the Super Bowl.
In college, you have personas like Spurrier, Paterno, and Bowden. In the pros, you have guys who come out of nowhere and will probably be fired in two years.
You keep your selfish, overpaid crybabies and I’ll take my student-athletes.
Given a choice between college or pro in almost any major sport, I’ll pick college. There’s much more emotion involved and better odds that the unexpected will happen — players stepping up to fulfill their promise, or collapsing under the weight of expectations. Not that this doesn’t happen in the pros, but, like Rob suggested (I think), the pros are a business. The players are, perhaps, more known quantities.
Other reason college football is better:
1. Unless you grew up in an NFL city, a college team is easier to identify with. Even those who didn’t attend college have old State U.
2. Every pro team runs the same plays and sets. The game always comes down to execution. College football has different schemes and styles of play. So many things can happen. In a related point. . .
3. NFL players are so good that the element of randomness that college football brings are gone.
4. There are no historic upsets in pro football. On any given Sunday. . .
5. Speaking of Sunday, Sunday is a lousy day to watch sports. Work is hanging over your head, you have to get things done you didn’t do on Saturday, and you’ve probably already used your get out of jail free card for the weekend. Saturday can be spent in front of the TV all day with the knowledge that you still have Sunday to redeem yourself.
6. Would you rather tailgate at The Grove with the Kappas or at Lambeau with the Cheeseheads?