{"id":2597,"date":"2011-01-10T16:16:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T22:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/\/?p=2597"},"modified":"2011-01-10T16:16:40","modified_gmt":"2011-01-10T22:16:40","slug":"close-of-college-football-season-has-us-looking-to-next-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/close-of-college-football-season-has-us-looking-to-next-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Close of College Football Season Has Us Looking to Next Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>There&#8217;s Something Special About the College Football Experience Which the Pros Can&#8217;t Match<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2613\" title=\"Tailgating 1\" src=\"\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"315\" height=\"315\" \/><\/a>Although the NFL will\u00a0march on for another three weeks or so, when the BCS champion is crowned tonight in Glendale, AZ, the football season will, in essence, end for many fans.\u00a0 Include me in that group.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Give the NFL\u00a0credit for having created an extremely attractive product, but there\u00a0is\u00a0nothing as fun or\u00a0as exciting as college football in the late summer and fall.\u00a0\u00a0The differences\u00a0between the two, pro and college,\u00a0are simultaneously stark and subtle:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The pros get paid far too much cash to play what is essentially a backyard game while college players receive an education in exchange for their play.\u00a0 There&#8217;s a purity in the thought that most of the college kids playing will soon be working Joes like the rest of us.<\/li>\n<li>Professional rules have diluted the game in many ways, i.e., closing in the hash marks, no touching receivers downfield, microphones in QB&#8217;s helmets, etc.\u00a0 In college, the hash marks still give you a &#8220;wide side of the field,&#8221; DB&#8217;s can still play the position with some freedom, and creative sideline signals have become a fun part of the action.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>In the pros, post-play and touchdown antics are part of the over blown\u00a0entertainment package.\u00a0 In college football, a team is penalized if a player chooses to embarrass himself with such childish and unsportsmanlike displays.\u00a0\u00a0In other words, college kids are expected to be responsible adults.\u00a0 Pro players aren&#8217;t.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>College cheerleaders are students who may get a few hundred dollars for the whole semester which go toward their education.\u00a0 Pro football cheerleaders are grown women who get\u00a0free admission into the game for doing something just this side of a strip tease.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>College\u00a0fans are locked into their team&#8217;s fortunes once and for all.\u00a0 The school and team are there forever.\u00a0 You can count on them.\u00a0 They won&#8217;t be sold or moved at someone&#8217;s whim.\u00a0\u00a0You win some and lose some.\u00a0 That&#8217;s life.\u00a0 Fans\u00a0of the pro game can never be completely comfortable that their team will not pack up and move in the middle of the night for a better deal.\u00a0 Just ask diehard Baltimore Colts fans, or the abandoned fans of the former Los Angeles Rams.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2615\" title=\"Tailgating 3\" src=\"\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" height=\"190\" \/><\/a>Although big time\u00a0college\u00a0football sadly is approaching its pro cousin in terms of commercialism and hype, as long as the NCAA decides not to pay players, the college game will continue to maintain its appeal over the professional version.\u00a0 It&#8217;s amatuer football after all.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, only about 20% of all college football games are played at the penultimate level, NCAA&#8217;s Football Bowl Subdivision, or FBS.\u00a0\u00a0 That means, of course, that 80% of all college games are played in relatively small stadiums on fairly small campuses and in\u00a0comparatively small towns where you can still buy a hamburger, soft drink and fries for\u00a0about $5.00 at the same place you hung out at when you were a student there.\u00a0 These are places where the parking attendants may be members of the baseball team, the people behind the concession stand could be the cross country runners, or the chain gang may be P.E. majors looking for extra credit in football theories class.\u00a0 There are no pundits on television\u00a0vigorously debating the team&#8217;s chances, no\u00a0in-depth player interviews, and no former coach\u00a0donning an oversized mascot head announcing which team he thinks will win the day\u2019s matchup.\u00a0 This is amatuer, college sports essentially the way it was when our\u00a0parents and grandparents watched the games years ago.\u00a0\u00a0There&#8217;s something comforting about\u00a0that which gets completely obliterated in the hoopla which is major college and professional football.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-6.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2619\" title=\"Tailgating 6\" src=\"\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-6.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"325\" height=\"231\" \/><\/a>For most college football fans, tailgating\u00a0is a\u00a0family, affordable affair where people meet with old friends they may only see once or twice a year, but it\u2019s a tradition and everyone plans around the dates.\u00a0 Team colors are worn by men in starched, Oxford shirts, pressed slacks, loafers or docksiders and baseball caps all with the school\u2019s logo tastefully embroidered on them.\u00a0 The women wear the colors and do it in their own, perfect style.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There are no drunken fools hanging onto one another, bouncing of their pick-up trucks and challenging or cursing at every person walking by wearing\u00a0the opponent&#8217;s jersey.\u00a0 No, the college game day tailgate atmosphere is\u00a0still a civilized event, not the barbaric falderals into which most pro stadium parking lot, pre-game parties have digressed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Once inside college stadiums, students sit together\u00a0near the field and cheer on their team while the adults and their kids sit by and smile at their antics and enthusiasm.\u00a0 Seven male students walk by shirtless, but\u00a0with their\u00a0torsos painted in the school colors.\u00a0 When they turn around to face the crowd, their rough printing spells out the\u00a0school&#8217;s name.\u00a0 You can look a few rows over and see your former math professor and his wife sitting\u00a0in the same seats they&#8217;ve had for the past 25 years.\u00a0 Former players walk in, wave at a few friends and sit alongside everyone else.\u00a0 There&#8217;s no beer to be bought.\u00a0 The few fans who sneak in a flask usually limit themselves to\u00a0a drink a half, just to stay a bit warm inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you gain admission to a pro game, you rarely see anyone you know and you can hardly walk up or down the\u00a0aisles\u00a0without slipping in a quagmire of beer beneath your feet.\u00a0 Certainly, college game days are not absent of colorful characters and over served fans, but they are not close to the mosh pits which some pro stadiums have devolved into.\u00a0 A parent would be hard pressed to take a youngster to a professional game today where the behavior can be rough and the language rougher still.\u00a0\u00a0At college games, fans express their pleasure and displeasure with oos, ahs and applause, but\u00a0you will not find a grown man stand up and yell\u00a0out\u00a0toward the field\u00a0as if his keys were stolen by the man in the striped shirt.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2616\" title=\"Tailgating 4\" src=\"\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Tailgating-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"345\" height=\"201\" \/><\/a>College players are still kids to alumni, fans and viewers.\u00a0 You&#8217;re reasonably confident\u00a0that if they are standing on the sidelines, they have gone to their classes, studied, taken and passed\u00a0tests.\u00a0 They&#8217;ve been\u00a0walking around campus with the other students, intermingling with\u00a0people\u00a0more interested in their term paper than the outcome of a football game.\u00a0 \u00a0These are\u00a0kids who\u00a0haven&#8217;t\u00a0been tainted by the lure of endorsements, shoe contracts or gifts from grateful agents.\u00a0 They are kids who play the game not because they think that someday they&#8217;ll be playing on Sunday afternoons, but because they love the game, want an education and enjoy being able to stand on the field and talk to their girlfriend, parents and roommates after the game.\u00a0 Pro players are nearly unapproachable anytime, but especially in and around stadiums.\u00a0 If they are on the field, about the only thing you can be sure of is that at the very least they are\u00a0out on bail.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For those reasons, and others, many of us will give cursory interest to what happens in the NFL after tonight&#8217;s game.\u00a0 Yes, we&#8217;ll watch the playoff games and the Super Bowl, but in the back of our minds we know that the pros can never come close to providing us with the same rich experience and feeling of Saturday afternoons at a college football game.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll see all the pretty confetti fall in\u00a0Cowboy Stadium following\u00a0Super Bowl XLV\u00a0then we&#8217;ll turn off the TV, smile a little and then dream of Saturday afternoons next fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s Something Special About the College Football Experience Which the Pros Can&#8217;t Match Although the NFL will\u00a0march on for another three weeks or so, when the BCS champion is crowned tonight in Glendale, AZ, the football season will, in essence, end for many fans.\u00a0 Include me in that group.\u00a0 Give the NFL\u00a0credit for having created &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/close-of-college-football-season-has-us-looking-to-next-fall\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}