This will be meaningless to everyone but I've kinda wanted to put it in writing. As I've posted in here a few times this year, I've watched less NFL this year than I can ever recall. The most instant complaint that pops into my head as to why is because of the length of games and frequency of commercials. But in retrospect, I watch an absolute ton of college football and my viewership there hasn't changed (or has in fact become stronger) despite the fact that the games actually take even longer to play. So I've tried over the past few weeks to delineate the two and figure out why I much prefer college football over the NFL. Here's what I've come up with:
- Variation in scheme/strategy - in the NFL, all 32 teams generally run a variation of a small number of offensive and defensive philosophies. But in college you have teams all over the board - pro-style, triple option, read option, run and shoot, pistol, 3-4, 4-3, 4-4, buck linebackers, 3-3-5, etc. I feel this adds an extra dimension to games.
- The games are more meaningful - In college, drop 2 games in September and your season might be over. In the NFL, drop 2 games in September and it's not uncommon to see a team run off a 10-4 record in the rest of the games and get right into the playoffs. The concept of a middling wildcard team getting hot and winning a Super Bowl just doesn't happen in college, and I like that.
- Constant new players - a star player in college football will get 2, maybe 3 years of stardom before either graduating or jumping to the pros. Every year there's a new hotshot star (Lamar Jackson, for example) who can set the game on fire. That just doesn't happen in the NFL. The same teams with the same quarterbacks are good pretty much every year, rinse repeat.
- The atmosphere of games - Even a big NFL playoff game just can't hold a candle to, say, a Saturday night in Baton Rouge. The NFL atmosphere is so corporate, so controlled, so....blah. Fans of college teams just seem to have a stronger attachment to their teams, and with the traditions, that all adds up.
- Sheer number of readily-accessible games - this may have changed if I had Sunday Ticket, but I don't because I'm not home for a number of Sundays because I'm at the Bills game. With my basic standard cable package, I can find probably 6-8 college games on at any given time all Saturday afternoon. Even if 75% are blowouts, there's inevitably something worth watching. Add in the WatchESPN app and there's another handful at my fingertips as well. Without Sunday Ticket, I get 1-2 1 PM NFL games and 1-2 4 PM games, one of which is the Bills game and one of which is pretty much always the Giants game. Meh.
- Reviews/challenges - I don't love the concept of a replay review to begin with, but college reviews just seem to go so much smoother. They don't review every scoring play and turnover, and tons of plays inside 2 minutes. An NFL review seems to put everything on hold for 3-4 minutes....ref goes under the hood, channel may go to commercial, takes forever. In college he puts on a headset and they've usually got it settled quickly....at least it seems so.