The Collegio Pittsburg's student voice since 1916
Football: all of us fans everywhere enjoy it rather it’s high school, “Friday Night Lights,” Saturday college game day, or Sundays with the NFL. One of the big debates throughout the football world is this—is NCAA or NFL football better?
I am here to tell you that the NFL is better—and by a longshot. First, there are three days’ worth of football worth watching: Monday night, Thursday night, and all day on Sunday.
With the NCAA, yeah there are Thursday and Friday night games, but sometimes they are boring games where teams win by like ten touchdowns. In college football there are always blow outs. Rather its an FBS team playing an FCS team or FBS playing FBS, it can result in very boring blowouts. Sure, if your team wins huge it can be good, but not seeing your team battle for the win and just scoring one after another isn’t fun. Yet, in the NFL, you almost always get high intense games that end with only a score or two difference.
The best thing about the NFL is that, even if a team has a bad record and is playing a team with a good one, there is always a chance that the “bad” team can win, since even if the team is bad obviously all the players were good enough to get drafted, so sometimes these crazy upsets happen which makes the game intense and fun.
One of my favorite examples would probably have to be how the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Indianapolis Colts last year in week one. Even after Indianapolis lost, they ended up going to the playoffs on a wildcard while Jacksonville didn’t even win another game, taking first pick in the draft.
Another reason that the NFL is better is when it comes to postseason. For AFC and NFC, seven teams make it and have a chance at the Super Bowl, with the four division leaders and three wildcard teams from each side. Yet, in college, its whatever four teams were ranked the highest on the AP poll.
With only four teams, it’s boring and quick playoffs, and every year its Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and pretty much someone fighting for fourth just to get blown out by Alabama. Yeah, sometimes it changes, but with Alabama winning it every year it gets boring if you’re not an Alabama fan.
With the NFL, we see the New England Patriots win it a lot, but sometimes we get these fun intense upsets giving another team glory, like the Tennessee Titans upsetting in the wildcard round in 2019, or the New York Giants winning last minute in 2012.
The best part of these playoffs is teams are always battling for playoff spots and every year the matchups are different, with maybe division rivals playing and even teams with a losing record making it because someone had to win the division. Once a team has secured their spot in the playoffs, often times they sit their starters the last week and everyone gets a chance to play, while in college some guys go all four years or even more and never play a single snap.
In conclusion, both college and professional football game days are fun to watch, but the NFL is better, and gives more opportunities for intense and fun games.