HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY! We beat Mississippi State AND Vanderbilt this year, and almost beat South Carolina and LOUISVILLE.
And as far as NBA vs. NCAA goes, I think the college team could win about 30% of the time. Possibly even more, depending on the team. If the 1996 Kentucky Wildcats had played an NBA team, it’s basically a tossup (that team had NINE NBA players.) If you throw the Murray State Racers or the Austin Peay Governors to an NBA team, they get walked on.
Faster–how so? The fastest guys in the NFL are at best marginally faster than the fastest college players, IF you’re comparing player against player, not team against team.
In sports, a little bit goes a long way. “Marginally faster” makes all of the difference in the world.
True enough, but it should also be noted that good college passers frequently pass for huge amounts of yardage are that college games have a lot more plays from scrimmage than pro games do, mostly because the college game stops the clock more than a pro game does. It’s not uncommon for a college QB to throw 50 passes in a game now, and that almost never happens in the pros.
I would take the Texans, give you 28 points, and put my house up against what you’re buying yourself for breakfast.
The TEXANS? Dang, USC won’t be favored by 7 against TEXAS!!!
You can start here. Here are the D-lineman as listed at the USC web site.
54 Jeff Schweiger DE 4-Jun 260 Soph. San Jose, California
65 Jeff Tola DE Jun-00 220 Soph. Upland, California
84 Kyle Moore DE 7-Jun 265 Fr. Kathleen, Georgia
90 Frostee Rucker DE 3-Jun 260 Sr. Tustin, California
91 Chris Barrett DE 5-Jun 265 Soph. Tustin, California
96 Lawrence Jackson DE 5-Jun 265 Soph. Inglewood, California
97 Alex Morrow DE 6-Jun 270 Soph. Rohnert Park, California
49 Sedrick Ellis DT 1-Jun 285 Soph. Chino, California
63 Travis Draper DT 4-Jun 295 Fr. Paso Robles, California
64 Mike Davis DT Jun-00 280 Jr. Irvine, California
75 Fili Moala DT 4-Jun 300 Fr. Buena Park, California
93 Lawrence Miles DT 3-Jun 265 Fr. Indio, California
94 Walker Lee Ashley DT 5-Jun 295 Fr. Eden Prairie, Minnesota
95 Travis Tofi DT 4-Jun 255 Jr. Aoa, --
98 LaJuan Ramsey DT 3-Jun 290 Sr. Compton, California
And here are the D-lineman for the texans.
95 Deloach, Jerry DE 6-2 315 5 California
99 Smith, Robaire DE 6-4 310 6 Michigan State
96 Walker, Gary DE 6-2 305 11 Auburn
75 Johnson, Travis DE 6-3 305 R Florida State
94 Ioane, Junior DT 6-4 320 6 Arizona State
91 Payne, Seth DT 6-4 303 9 Cornell
The FIRST thing you might notice is that the biggest D lineman for USC is lighter than the lightest D-lineman for Houston.
On top of that, I’ll almost guarantee that everyone of those guys on the Texans is faster than those USC players. For christ sakes, look where they’re from. . .Cornell?? California?? You know what that says: we scour the ENTIRE college football landscape to find the biggest, fastest players we can.
USC has a few players that will start in the NFL, and not be good for a few years. Do you get what that means? They MIGHT have 4 or 5 guys who could even make the roster at Houston. They wouldn’t be as good as the current starters, and only 2 of those 4 or 5 would EVER start.
Ridiculous.
Essentially, USC would be out manned at EVERY SINGLE POSITION on the field. David Carr (right now) is a better pro QB than Leinert. Domanick Davis is a better running back than Reggie Bush. And that’s your two best players for USC.
The O-line for Houston would DESTROY the USC D-line. The recievers for houston would BLOW PAST USC’s cornerbacks. My god, Fresno State’s receivers blew past the USC cornerbacks.
When USC had the ball, there’s not one guy who could get open. Houston’s D-line would shove the USC O-line 3 yards back at the snap of the ball, every snap. Then, they would probably block the punt.
A college football team wouldn’t score a point on a pro team, and a pro team would march up and down the field at will.
OK, they went on to have NINE NBA players.
Even if they played and NBA team then, it would NINE ROOKIES.
A toss-up? They would get beat 100% of the time by every NBA team that has ever existed.
Trunk, I agree with you but I don’t think it’s quite as lopsided as you’re arguing. You highlighted the Texans D-line but you’re neglecting to note that they have one of the heaviest lines by a wide margin. If we look at the D-lines for
San Fran
94 Marques Douglas DE 28 6-2 280 5 Howard
92 Travis Hall DE 33 6-5 295 11 Brigham Young
58 Corey Smith DE 26 6-2 250 2 North Carolina State
97 Bryant Young DE 33 6-3 291 12 Notre Dame
91 Anthony Adams DT 25 6-0 299 3 Penn State
93 Chris Cooper DT 27 6-5 285 5 Nebraska-Omaha
95 Ronald Fields DT 24 6-2 323 R Mississippi State
90 Isaac Sopoaga DT 24 6-2 321 1 Hawaii
Arizona
92 Bertrand Berry DE 30 6-3 277 8 Notre Dame
95 Kenny King DE 24 6-3 285 2 Alabama
56 Chike Okeafor DE 29 6-5 265 7 Purdue
97 Calvin Pace DE 25 6-4 270 3 Wake Forest
67 Antonio Smith DE 24 6-3 274 1 Oklahoma State
96 R-Kal Truluck DE 31 6-4 255 4 Cortland State
93 Tim Bulman DT 23 6-3 290 R Boston College
98 Russell Davis DT 30 6-4 306 7 North Carolina
90 Darnell Dockett DT 24 6-4 293 2 Florida State
72 Ross Kolodziej DT 27 6-3 292 4 Wisconsin
91 Langston Moore DT 24 6-1 303 2 South Carolina
Indianapolis
79 Raheem Brock DE 27 6-4 274 4 Temple
93 Dwight Freeney DE 25 6-1 268 4 Syracuse
98 Robert Mathis DE 24 6-2 235 3 Alabama A&M
95 Darrell Reid DE 23 6-2 288 R Minnesota
91 Josh Thomas DE 24 6-5 271 2 Syracuse
99 Jonathan Welsh DE 23 6-4 228 R Wisconsin
72 Vincent Burns DT 24 6-2 260 R Kentucky
90 Montae Reagor DT 28 6-3 285 7 Texas Tech
97 Corey Simon DT 28 6-2 293 6 Florida State
75 Larry Tripplett DT 26 6-2 295 4 Washington
96 Josh Williams DT 29 6-3 285 6 Michigan
and Chicago
96 Alex Brown DE 26 6-3 262 4 Florida
97 Michael Haynes DE 25 6-3 274 3 Penn State
93 Adewale Ogunleye DE 28 6-4 260 5 Indiana
70 Alfonso Boone DT 29 6-4 318 5 Mount San Antonio JC
91 Tommie Harris DT 22 6-3 300 2 Oklahoma
71 Israel Idonije DT 25 6-6 275 2 Manitoba
99 Tank Johnson DT 24 6-3 300 2 Washington
95 Ian Scott DT 24 6-3 302 3 Florida
We see that the USC starters are in the same ballpark, and notice I haven’t exactly picked only sucky D-lines.
The college team would be outmatched, especially if they were were forced to go into their reserve players, but I don’t think a bad NFL team would put up 70 against the Trojans or Texans.
USC gave up how many points to Fresno State? You don’t think an NFL team could score 70 on their defense? USC’s defense is terrible. They win games with offense. Any NFL team could score 70 points on USC if they wanted, and any NFL defense could shut down the Trojans great college offense. Leinart would have no time to get a pass off with an NFL blitz package coming at him, and Reggie Bush would be just as fast as many of the linebackers and cornerbacks trying to tackle him.
No contest.
Fresno St. put up 42.
I don’t think any pro-team would have a problem putting up twice that. Twice.
Guys, look. . .what did Texas do to Colorado this week. 70-3 and that was slowing it down. USC won 66-19.
Do you really think that those games were greater mismatches than any pro-team would be against THEM?
There are 116 (or close to that) Dvision 1 NCAA teams, with rosters of like 60-100 people. There are 6000 kids playing college football.
In a given year, about 180 of them get drafted, a small percentage of them make a team, a smaller percentage starts EVENTUALLY, a VERY small percentage starts in their first year, and a miniscule percentage is actually good in their first year. 1 or 2 out of that 180.
Here’s another way to look at it: every single player on the Texans was AWESOME in college. Every single one of them would have been starting at USC this year, except for Carr and Davis (both of whom were still VERY good in college).
However, USC currently starts about 16-17 players who don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of EVER starting for the Texans. They will not play pro football. They are not fast enough, big enough, or good enough to start for anyone anywhere.
That’s just mean.
The weight issue is irrelevant for the DL. Strahan dropped 20 pounds this season, down to the mid to upper 250s. Osi is mid 270s. Can you imagine a college OL facing Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora?! Holy shit, every single pass attempt would be a sack.
But you guys are forgetting something: not all NFL teams are competitive. I agree that in general, no college team should ever have even a faint hope of scoring a single point against any pro team. HOWEVER…
I give you the 2005 New York Jets. Probably would be a pick em against the Trojans.
The Jets would be 35 point favorites against the Trojans.
The only reason they wouldn’t be a 63 point underdog is because at 35 they’d find enough suckers to bet on them.
Golic & Greeney had this exact conversation earlier, and Golic agreed with all of you. Greeney started talking about comparing the Trojans with the Jets on a player by player basis…receivers, running backs, quarterback…
At this point Golic cut him off and said “well the Jets aren’t currently competitive, just like a college team wouldn’t be.”
Seriously, the Texans, 49ers and Saints are all competitive. The Jets are simply not. Have you actually watched any Jets games recently? I have. They turn the ball over via botched snaps fer chrissakes. Multiple times a game! Anyway, a few other thoughts, ignoring the Jets as the anomaly they are.
Do the college guys have to get both feet down, or still only one?
One major problem college players would have is that every pro will attempt to strip the ball away on every tackle. I’m fairly confident that ball security would rapidly become a huge issue for the college team.
As has been said, kicking is huge. The battle for field position would go laughably against the college team, assuming the pro team ever had to punt. (Maybe they dropped some passes or something.)
Linemen on both sides of the ball take a few years to work up to the pro level. Odds on any punt or kick being blocked would be pretty high.
Consider this game:
College players play by college overtime rules. One foot for a catch, always start every possession on the plus 25, no punts. Every play is reviewed in real time and bad calls are overturned only if that would favor the college team.
Pros play by pro rules. Two feet for a catch, only two coaches challenges except after the two minute warnings, they get the ball as normal from special teams.
Given these constraints, I’d put the Texans over the Trojans 77 to 10.
Thanks for all of the replies, everyone.
Yeah, but like you pointed out, how often do equally matched teams play each other in college ball? Not very. Which is why the overwhelming majority of college games are so mediocre. It’s most amusing when a good offense finally gets matched with a good defense - only rarely is the college offense team able to make adjustments that allow them to march up the field in this case.
You’ve got a handful of OK players (only 1 of which, if that, will every play pro ball) on a team filled out with guys who are good enough to play in college (or who are needed to fill out the roster) but who will never play in the NFL. Against a team full of guys who are all good enough to play in the NFL. It’d be a massacre.
What if you limited the NFL team to 10 men?
I’ll take Ditka by 50 points to beat USC by himself. Da Bears!
Are we talking about normal Ditka or mini-Ditka?
Da Bears!
After watching my Eagles bend over the 50-yard line last night and score exactly zero points, I would think that with Mike McMahon at QB, even a college DB could intercept one of his passed and run it back for a TD.