I follow the NFL but Saturdays are when I’m glued to my screen. I love the college game and think it’s much, much more interesting than the NFL.
I agree, I’ve heard this comment before and I just shake my head and wonder. Hell, I love watching football at any level, my kids peewee games were fun to watch, HS is fun to watch, college is fun to watch and NFL is fun to watch.
The level of athleticism between the teams on the field is usually similar which makes for great competitive action.
Just never could get into college football. May have to do with the farce that these players are somehow students. Or the whole “frat-boy jock” thing and stupid marching bands. Or the way bowl games are chosen subjectively. Or the subjective rankings.
I’ve tried, lord have I tried, but just can’t watch it.
I watch both, though I have an emotional connection to college that I just don’t have with the NFL. A Michigan win just lifts me up, and a loss can send me into a funk that can take a couple days to work myself out of sometimes. Every year going into the season, I tell myself I’ve grown out of it, but it never happens. I bleed Maize and Blue.
With the NFL, I’m much more a fan of the league than just the Lions, and I’m much less invested in the outcomes. Watching a good game is fun and exciting, but it’s just not the same level.
Well said, Prox. This describes me exactly (although I can add HS to the mix for football. Watching a good HS football game is fun!).
I can’t watch college football simply because of the vast disparity in the athleticism of the players. In the NFL, everyone is big and fast.
The real reason I can’t watch college football is because I’m a fan of defense, and defense in college is a joke. I don’t know if it’s because the few top-notch athletes on a college team gravitate toward offense, or the defensive schemes are weak, or the offensive schemes are designed to exploit the lack of competitive athleticsm on defense, or what, but I hate offense-only football. Can’t stand the arena league for the same reason.
If they ever get away from that stupid bowl system and get some playoffs, I’ll watch college ball. Until then it’s just NFL.
I chose “follow both but more interested in college”.
My preference for college football is based on really liking college ball, and having a certain disdain for NFL football.
My disdain for the NFL primarily stems from the fact that ALL NFL fans, me included, are essentially fans that are worse than college wanna-bees. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the number of morons who wear Cowboys stuff around here who probably couldn’t tell you the difference between an I formation and a pro-set, but who will happily babble on in the most ignorant fashion about Tony Romo and the rest of the team. People are fans just by virtue of either living nearby, or worse, just choosing a team.
Add to that the fact that while the NFL players are individually better, the game’s much more homogenous. Everyone essentially runs the same plays, same formations, and same defenses. There’s little risk- it’s less a matter of strategy and tactics than which team has better players. Individual teams don’t really have any personality outside of that of their quarterback and a handful of media darling players. There are no real rivalries in the pro game; the ones that the sportscasters talk about are contrived BS like Dallas/Philadelphia or
College on the other hand, gives you the whole rich tapestry of the game- hotly contested rivalries, interesting formations, interesting plays and coaches who take risks and do some really interesting things. It’s interesting to see wildly different teams play- watching Air Force play Boise State is interesting in a way that watching the Cowboys play the Dolphins- you have an option team vs. a more pro-style team, instead of two virtually identical teams playing each other.
That’s why I like college football and don’t really like pro as much.
CFL football. Then US college football.
The NFL has absolutely no appeal to me.
You’re a junkie. Your standards are low enough to genuinely like high school football, which then precludes you from any discussion about taste.
High school football is barely a football-like substance.
There is more disparity, and I think it can make for some good excitement. In the NFL you are right, everyone is big and fast and the defense shuts down anything that takes more than a half second to develop, which makes it feel to me that it is more of a slow game of field position.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the NFL, I just think college feels a little more like the wild west for exactly the reason you mention.
I think the issue is that, as you said, the players are all big, fast and talented, but the field is the exact same size. Makes it that much tougher to have an effective offense.
You must not watch much SEC football.
Sure, they don’t strike. Every time the players threaten to walk, the NCAA doubles their salary.
College football is bad or vanilla defense and bad tackling.
I follow my college team and, to some extent, its conference. I wouldn’t usually sit down and watch two teams from outside my conference play unless it was a big bowl game or something.
In the NFL I watch every game for the team I grew up with when it’s available, and maybe about half the games for the local team. Again I don’t watch many games unless it’s a team I root for or maybe a direct rival’s game.
So I guess about the same. I probably average a little less than one college game and one NFL game per week. That’s six hours; who’s got time for more?
When growing up, my two teams where the OSU Buckeyes and the Cleveland Browns, and I watched both religiously. When the Browns left Cleveland, I lost interest in NFL football. Even when a new team was started there, I never felt a strong connection to it.
So now the only football team I follow is OSU, although I’ll sometimes watch the USC game if the OSU game is in the morning (I’m just not in the mood for football at 9am). If an NFL team comes to LA, I’ll probably start watching it.
I voted that I follow the NFL and have no interest in college, but that’s really not completely true, but it’s the closest it gets. I can understand being devoted to college football if one went to a school where football is important or if one lives in an area where it’s a big deal (like, as mentioned upthread, Hokie country, or any number of colleges in the middle of nowhere like Oklahoma, Nebraska, etc.). The thing is, the school I went to has no football team; they do well in basketball, and it was neat seeing them in the Final Four as an under dog a few years ago, but that’s about as emotional as I got about it then… it was neat.
Not to say that the pro game is by any means perfect, especially with the recent strike that had me close to ready to swear off the league for a few years, but it is far less flawed than the college game. The level of athleticism is head and shoulders above the college level as is the strategy. A lot of the college strategy seems to rely on “we’re better, we’ll shove it down their throats” and often a big mess when two college teams with that mentality play.
And further on that, parity is good. Blow outs are kind of fun if people are expecting it to be close and one team just truly outclasses the other, but those are rare. In the NFL, even the worst team has a chance of beating the best team, and often even those teams can play a close game. In college, many games are blow outs from the beginning and it never gets interesting because they’re concerned with point differentials. And watching two awful teams isn’t any better. Watching two good teams can be interesting, but even those end up being blow outs half the time too.
That said, a tightly fought college game between two good teams can be as entertaining as the best college game and potentially even more interesting because someone who just plain loves the game, like I do, can enjoy it for what it is without having to cheer for or against a certain team. Whereas in the NFL, I almost always have a preference for who wins and it only approaches that sort of thing with a few middle of the pack sort of teams.
And as also mentioned upthread, the other major problem in the NFL is fantasy football. I hate having my game coverage ruined with fantasy numbers when I’d rather see more highlights or more actual numbers. And I think it ruins fandom because how am I supposed to feel when my favorite team is up against one of the stars of my fantasy team? It causes a lot of focus on individual athletes and misses out on the team and the play in the trenches which are the parts I enjoy the most.
I still consider most “big” plays in NCAA to be entirely the error of the other team who went right instead of left due to hangover or a biology final. Case in point: Reggie Bush. 
But I’ll admit the last 3 or 4 minutes from the 100+ bowl games they have now can be exciting.
I can’t stand college football. Too many huge (30 and 40+) point spreads.