Doper football fans, which statement best describes your comparative interest in the NFL and college football?
I follow and am equally interested in both the NFL and college football.
I follow both the NFL and college football but I am more interested in the NFL.
I follow the NFL but have no interest in college football.
I follow both the NFL and college football but I am more interested in college football.
I follow college football but have no interest in the NFL.
First to vote, College Football, First and foremost, and Only. I used to follow NFL, but I doubt if i watch a full game this year.
I watch and follow it all, but Saturdays are my favorite.
I voted “I follow the NFL but have no interest in college football”.
I think it stems from growing up in the New York area, a college football black hole throughout the 80s and 90s.
I have zero interest in college football for a variety of reasons.
Fans that never went to the school. Are there any people more desperate to be a part of something than these guys? It’s as if they need to make up for the fact that they have no association with the school by being extra-loud and obnoxious. Worse, you know as well as I do that they compose most of the fanbase of any college team.
Conferences. SEC fan is the worst right now, but when USC was the front runner it was Pac-10 fan and Oklahoma it was the Big 8/12/whatever. Because the conference’s overall performance somehow demonstrates the greatness of “your” team, as if being a bottom-feeding SEC team somehow still makes Vanderbilt better than Boise State simply by virtue of being in the great and mighty SEC. It’s ridiculous, but you hear it from conference homers week after week.
College football is even more transient than pro football. Generally speaking the stars in the NFL stay largely where they are, that’s why a star moving is big news. You can get behind a pro team as a result. Not so with college.
Cheating and other corruption. If a college team is in the top 20 they’re cheating. Simple as that. The schools that are actually using student-athletes and are not paying or using other inducements to draw players get smoked week after week. I’m not a “it’s not fair” sort of guy, but when Oklahoma plays Sister Rosalie’s School of Sewing it’s amazing that people don’t get killed, it’s that much of a mismatch.The NCAA doesn’t care enough to enforce their own rules as long as the cash keeps pouring in. It’s all corrupt.
Scheduling. See above. In the NFL even the Bengals have a chance from week to week. But in college it’s typically so mismatched that there’s a nickname for the weak teams that the majors get fat on: cupcakes.
Subpar football. Again, see above.
The pro game is so much better in every respect, although that also has a flaw that college largely doesn’t: fantasy football. Pick a team, watch the game, and get your sheaf of papers out of my face. No, I don’t care who you have on your team. No, I will never, ever root for a Raven or Patriot to do well under any circumstances. Also, college players don’t strike, which is a plus, though that hasn’t really mattered since 1987.
No, I don’t care about college football. If it’s on that’s fine. I won’t seek it out and I don’t care who wins other than to find out who will be doing the peacock strut at work on Monday and who I can taunt when I get bored.
EDIT: Wow, I forgot the 900-pound gorilla, the mother of all reasons to like the NFL over college: playoffs. No politics necessary, no voting, no guessing, the best team is determined on the field.
NFL only. NCAA football is a farce.
I watch both, but prefer the NFL.
I answered that I don’t really care at all about college football, but that would be a lie. I hope Michigan wins every game, but outside of that thought, I’m not really invested in it. I haven’t seen a game since they remodeled the Big House*, although that might be fun to do.
*Fun fact: last game I went to was Oregon annihilating Michigan in Ann Arbor.
I used to be a college football fan and went to Florida State from 1987-1991. However, all the corruption and conference changes have really turned me off. Dragging the BCS way past New Years Day also sucks.
So, I mainly follow the NFL and just a slight interest in college these days.
I’m not a big football fan to begin with, but more of a NFL fan. Though I may watch Badger’s games. I didn’t go to Madison, but my 3 sisters, my Mom*, a niece and nephew, etc.
There are just too many teams.
Brian
*Elroy “crazy legs” Hirsh said “hi Pat” (yes, her name 
) crossing paths on campus
I don’t watch College football for the same reason I don’t watch minor league baseball. I prefer to watch the best.
But you’re a Mets fan?
I enjoy all levels of professional football, but the game is better played by the NFL version than the NCAA’s.
College only for me. The NFL sucks.
I loved this answer, even though I voted for “follow NFL only.” Get a playoff system and revamp college athletics and I might actively follow college football, as opposed to just keeping track of it in order to keep up at the water cooler.
I take pretty much the exact opposite tack to Airman Doors’s views on fantasy football. It and gambling are pretty much the only reasons why I care about 75% of what the NFL does. That said, few things are more boring than listening to some yahoo drone on and on about his fantasy team, draft, sit/start decisions, etc…
“I follow both the NFL and college football but I am more interested in college football.”
The college game is just so much more exciting. From the band, to the student sections, the intense conference rivalry games–it just puts me more into the game.
If my NFL team loses, eh, no big deal. If my college team loses, it’s like a punch in the gut. Sure, I get over it but man, it hurts.
I follow college football mostly because I can sort of identify with teams I follow. Growing up in southwest Virginia which pro team would I really identify with? The answer is that most people I knew back then followed a random sampling of teams all across the country. We were far enough away from DC that following the Redskins barely made any more sense than following the Steelers, the Bengals, or the Colts (Baltimore variety.)
Some people not from around the area sometimes expect you’d see strong support for the Redskins, but really if you look at a map driving up there is about equidistant with driving to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and at 5+ hours (more when I was a kid) to get to D.C. area Baltimore is not much further.
For that reason Virginia Tech is kind of a big deal for people in that part of Virginia. I went to West Point so for me it’s not very easy to follow my actual alma mater. For one, it’s a long trip up to New York, for two we’re painfully bad at football. I try to see a game once every few years but it’s just not easy.
I don’t really understand why someone would have a problem with the fact a lot of Virginia Tech’s fans aren’t alumni. It’s a region where we had and still have no real pro option, so it makes lots of sense for the college team in the area to be followed by all of the football fans, and by and large it is.
I can see this complaint if someone is say, a die hard Pittsburgh Panthers fan but never went there. That guy it would probably make more sense for him to just be a Steelers fan since that’s a team that is more a representation of the “city” as opposed to just a school in the city. But for a lot of schools like Alabama, Virginia Tech, Nebraska, etc they have such strong fan bases because the people in those areas had no pro team to follow whatsoever.
So? You never worked for the Pittsburgh Steelers, right? Even discounting alumni, college football allegiance is mostly based on regional affiliation (just like in the NFL), and even when it’s not the justifications are only barely more arbitrary. Maybe you like Notre Dame because of their high academic standards, or Michigan because they have cool uniforms and the best fight song, or Alabama because those Auburn fans are total dicks (hypothetically), etc. None of that seems less valid to me than that I root for the Giants because I happen to be from New York City and they won the Super Bowl when I was 6.
I agree NFL has the best players, but college football has the best games (and more of them).
That is what I don’t get about people who only watch NFL, college football has more games. On Saturdays I can flip between 5 different games all day long.
I’ll watch McNeese St play Duke if it’s close in the 4th quarter
Oh and the quarterbacks arn’t pussies
? So, if you lived in a town with a Triple-A team, but no MLB team and there was no pro baseball on tv on Saturday, but the local AAA team was on, you wouldn’t watch? Man, the LLWS must drive you batty. Fucking kids - who do they think they are playing a man’s game?
Further, with college football there is one excellent reason to watch if you’re a pro fan. Those are next year’s players you’re watching. How do you know if your team drafted well unless you pay at least some attention to college ball?
Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but I’ve heard this attitude before and it truly completely fails to resonate with me. If you love the sport, shouldn’t you love watching good contests with equivalent talent playing their asses off?