Big Deal about NCAA football:
from the fans standpoint:
- Bigger, more rowdy crowds than the NFL
- Older tradition then the NFL
- Schools don't move like franchises can
- No matter where one moves, they can always call their alma mater home, so you have lifetime fans, whereas one may move, like their new city and gain an affinity for the local team.
- Player movement from school to school is much less likely
- Quick turnaround of teams,
- More color, more pageantry, more familiar
- It is amateur sport uncompromised. Amateur sport is often great, but often limited in dollars, fans and TV. This situation is different. The dollars are there.
As a game:
- Much more open to a variety of systems. You can have offenses like, fun and gun like Texas Tech, Pro style like Ohio State or Michigan, Zone Read like Texas, or spread like Oklahoma.
- The athlete's aren't quite the trained machines that they are in the NFL yet, so mistakes are more likely. Sometimes NFL games are too perfect. Think Formula 1 vs F3000. We all know Formula 1 has better cars and drivers, but most of the time, the most entertainment will come from the F3000 race. Look at Michigan vs Texas in the Rose Bowl last year. You rarely see a guy take over like that in professional sports.
- At the same time, college football is more basic. Making it more easy to follow. From high school up, systems become more and more complicated. In high school most teams don't execute good enough to be super enjoyable, though you do run into a Southlake Carroll or mid-90s Lake Highlands once in a while. The pro systems are super complicated from an execution standpoint as well as running technical blitz schemes. College football is right in the middle. The execution is there, and simply ahead of most crazy NFL defensive schemes. Makes for a more fun game.
I like both as they are not really competing entities. College football is just plain fun. Its great to watch players grow up there and become pros.