By Jack Blankenship

My heart was pounding through my chest. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I could barely watch the events about to transpire, yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the field. I was witnessing my first NFL playoff game, as the Seattle Seahawks were ahead of the home team Atlanta Falcons 28-27.

After a Seattle timeout to ‘ice the kicker,’ the Atlanta Falcons suddenly ran onto the field, led by their near-flawless kicker, Matt Bryant. The ball was snapped to the placeholder, and Bryant executed a game winning field goal for the Falcons. After watching a city triumph in the glory of finally winning a playoff game, I came to a realization: the NFL presents a greater environment for football than college.

Don’t get me wrong: college football has the potential to be a better football experience than the NFL. It is great in the sense that one can watch a Division-I game almost anywhere in the country, and every person can have their ‘team’ be different than most others. It’s also cool to say that a team can ‘climb the ladder’ to reach the prize of a National Championship and that ‘every game matters.’ However, until College Football can become a fair game, the NFL will always be the better experience for a fan that generally loves the game of football.

The system installed for college football is not a fair system. Period. To highlight the ridiculousness of college football, I can easily state that the league with the obviously inferior overtime system is by far the more fair system. The best team in College Football can lose one game early in the season and be eliminated from championship consideration instantly. Likewise, three great teams could go undefeated for a season, forcing one team out of title consideration simply because of the teams they played and how the media, the coaches, and the computers analyzed each aspect of every victory.

College football is a game that is ultimately decided on paper. It is purely ridiculous to have to vote for a team to play in a championship. I understand that this is an argument against an outdated BCS system and for a playoff, but I don’t even think the system that’ll replace it will ultimately make it a fair game. College football will still be over analyzed. In the NFL, each team simply beats the next team to move on to the next round.

On another note, one big complaint against the NFL is that it’s a league filled with athletes who play for a big paycheck. However, you could make an argument that college football is just as (if not more) money-hungry as the NFL: Schools volunteer to travel across the country and get pummeled by powerhouses for hundreds of thousands of dollars, the NCAA refuses to adopt a playoff system because the corrupt bowl system is a money grabbing scheme, teams are constantly guilty of cheating by giving benefits to players, etc. College football is a system more cash-driven than the NFL. Case in point: championship games.

College championship games have sponsors. The past four BCS National Championships have been sponsored by Citi, Tostitos, Allstate and Discover respectively.

The past four NFL championship games have been titled: Super Bowl XLVII, Super Bowl XLVI, Super Bowl XLV, and Super Bowl XLIV. Not “Super Bowl XLVII, Presented by GoDaddy.com”

The fact that the leaders of collegiate football are negligent to change an obviously flawed system in order to gain more money is corruption at its best, folks.

While I do understand how every week is pivotal for a CFB team, one cannot say that every week doesn’t matter for an NFL team. Each week can change how a team is seeded for the playoffs, aligned in the draft, and slated for the off-season.

In addition, an NFL team cannot schedule a pathetic cupcake team to come to their school to simply better their season resume for bowl consideration. Each team has the tools to beat the other team in the NFL, and every Sunday, you are guaranteed a generally more competitive slate of games than college football can offer.

As a fan of football, I have to say that a better experience for the sport is the NFL. Seeing that I am from Alabama (Roll Tide) and most of you all reading this are too, I know that my opinion will be in the minority of those who read this. Oh well.

P.S. If this argument were for college football, you would probably see the Doritos logo right around here.

Jack Blankenship is a sophomore majoring in civil engineering.