College vs. NFL

I'm back to tackle a subject I've tackled before:  college football vs. professional football.  I originally wanted to do this for my 200th post, but what I did instead was quite appropriate.  To review briefly, the NFL used to be my favorite sport.  Football in general has dropped behind baseball, but the NFL has also dropped behind college football.  That started when I transferred to Notre Dame, but I was still a bigger NFL fan than college fan while I was at Notre Dame.  Really it was the Jets that made me a bigger college fan.  But that was due mostly to Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan.  By the way, last year I was worried that the Jets would somehow end up with Jameis Winston.  If that happened, I was out.  I would still be an NFL fan, but there was no way I was ever going to root for that guy.  Anyway, Mark Sanchez and Rex Ryan are gone and we avoided Jameis Winston, so can the NFL move back ahead of college?  Let's break it down.

Professional Athletes vs. Student Athletes
I'm partial to student athletes.  The problem is that not every school is Notre Dame.  What percentage of SEC football players are legitimate students?  It's probably pretty low except maybe at Vanderbilt.  College football isn't as bad as college basketball where you have Kentucky and Duke with players that have to act like students for only one semester (yes, Duke has become just about as bad as Kentucky), but it's still bad.
Edge:  NFL

Regular Season
College has the obvious edge here, but one of the best things about college football can also be one of the worst.  In 2013, Notre Dame's season was over by the end of September (two losses).  So it's awesome that the games mean so much, but it can also make life as a college fan pretty miserable.  On the other hand, you have the NFL where the regular season matters more than other professional sports except for baseball, but it still doesn't matter that much.  The 2002 Jets started 1-4 and then ended up winning a playoff game (41-0 against Peyton Manning, still the last home playoff game for the Jets).  The 2011 Giants went 9-7 and then beat the cheaters from New England for the second time in four years in the Super Bowl.  I mean that was wonderful, but yeah, I'll take having every regular season game matter.
Big Edge:  College

Method of Determining the Champion
College has come a long way.  They used to vote for the National Champions.  In 1993, Notre Dame beat Florida State during the regular season.  Both teams won their bowl game and finished with one loss and yet Florida State was voted National Champions.  Now we have a four team playoff with the teams chosen by a committee.  It's a big upgrade.  In fact, I don't know if I'd made any changes.  Brian Kelly wants an eight-team playoff, which would be very good for Notre Dame this year.  However, it would make the regular season less important and you'd get a lot of two-loss teams and possibly even three-loss teams competing for the championship.  I wouldn't like that.  I don't think it's perfect, but I don't know how to fix it.  Notre Dame dropped from 4 to 6 in the rankings after an ugly win against Boston College.  As my brother Sean pointed out, in the NFL all you have to do is win.  There's a 12-team tournament where all the spots are determined by record and tie-breakers.  Simple.  There's no debate.  Everybody knows the rules and how to make the playoffs.
Edge:  NFL

Postseason
This is closely related to the last topic, but not exactly the same.  College has made some great changes.  I love the New Year's Six.  College has reclaimed New Year's with the six biggest bowls.  And it's nice to have two of those bowls having a hand in determining the National Champions each year again.  It's also nice to have the bowls on during my Christmas vacation.  In fact, I'm a little disappointed that I'm going to miss the Miami Beach Bowl on December 21 because I have to teach and then coach a basketball game that day.  But really, the only reason I'm interested in it is that it's played in a baseball stadium.  It's 11-2 Western Kentucky against 8-4 South Florida.  The game is pretty much meaningless.  And so are most bowl games.  Was I supposed to be happy two years ago when we won the Pinstripe Bowl?  I mean, it was fun, but I wasn't happy with our season.  One thing that college needs to figure out is how to get the National Championship Game off of Monday night and have it played on a Saturday instead.  The NFL gets the postseason right.  All the postseason games matter.  And they're all well-attended, unlike a lot of college bowl games.  I also really like the first two weekends of the NFL Playoffs when you have two games on Saturday and two games on Sunday.  One thing that would make it better would be if we were always off the day after the Super Bowl (I'm not totally opposed to Super Bowl Saturday, but I'd rather just be off on the Monday), but at least the Super Bowl starts at 6:30 and not 8:30.
Big Edge:  NFL

Not Having a Huge Gap in the Season
We have almost four weeks between the last game for Clemson, Alabama, and Michigan State and their playoff games (almost five for Oklahoma).  It used to be even worse.  In 2006 and 2007, Ohio State had more than seven weeks between their last game and the Championship Game.  And people complain about two weeks between the Conference Championship Games and the Super Bowl.
Edge:  NFL

Rules Differences
I don't mind the rules differences.  I like that the rules aren't the same.  One foot down in college, two in the NFL.  A ball carrier being down when on the ground in college, down by contact in the NFL.  The different hash marks.  I'm partial to college's wider hash marks because the field looks nicer and field goals are more difficult, but I can live with the NFL's hash marks.  I also think the NFL's long extra points are silly, but I'm good with either set of rules.
Small Edge:  College

Overtime
This is the exception to the rules differences.  Football has kickoffs and punts.  College overtime doesn't.  In football you have to earn good field position.  Unless you're in overtime in college.  If you want to make sure both teams have a possession fine, but don't take all special teams except for field goals out of the game.
Big Edge:  NFL

Day of the Week
This one is easy.  Saturday is just the best day of the week.  It's not even close.  I don't have to go to work that day or the next day.  It's wonderful.  Sunday is the end of my weekend.  If there's stuff I put off because I wanted to watch college football, I have to do it on Sunday.  And I have to go to work the next day.
Big Edge:  College

Weekly Schedule
I don't like Monday night games.  They end late and I still have four days of work after that left in my week.  So that's not helping the NFL.  Both have games on Thursday nights that I don't really like either.  College has Friday night games which I don't mind, but they're usually not particularly interesting games.  But let's just focus on college's Saturday schedule vs. the NFL's Sunday Schedule.  On Saturday the games start at noon.  You usually don't have great games at noon, but you might have something interesting.  At 3:30, you get most Notre Dame home games, an SEC game on CBS and maybe something interesting on ABC or ESPN.  Then at night you get lots of games on ABC/ESPN and probably Fox also.  Usually the best games are at night.  I love when Notre Dame wins in the afternoon and then I can just drink beer and enjoy the night games.  It's the best.  If you're lucky you might get a good Pac 12 game starting after 10:00.  Good times.  The NFL, on the other hand, ugh.  At most you're getting 14 games on Sunday (except for week 17) because of the Thursday and Monday games.  You have a Sunday night game.  So that leaves 13 games for Sunday afternoon.  For some reason, the NFL has decided to play the vast majority of these games at 1:00.  This weekend for example, we have eleven 1:00 games and two 4:00 games.  This is inexcusable.  If you're playing 13 Sunday afternoon games, at least four of them should be at 4:00.  If you only have two or three late games, you're left with a decent chance that none of those games are good.  And then you have one game at night that might or might not be good.
Big Edge:  College

My Teams
Notre Dame vs. the Jets.  I mean, the Jets had Joe Namath and Curtis Martin, but...
Big Edge:  College

Verdict:  I had ten categories.  (Did I miss anything?)  Of those categories, we have the NFL with the edge in three and a big edge in two.  College has a big edge in four and a small edge in one.  If we're awarding one point for an edge and two points for a big edge (and none for a small edge), college wins by a score of 8-7.  I actually think three points would be more appropriate for a big edge, which would give us college by a score of 12-9.  Yeah, I like college better.