A Rick Reilly classic: Why college football is better than pro

This appeared in Sports Illustrated back in the day before the Internet. It's always worth an annual revisit before the season starts...

No Contest
by Rick Reilly

Anybody who has not had large portions of his cerebellum removed for scientific purposes knows that college football is better than pro football in the way that Sean Connery is better than Roger Moore. Still, it's always nice to remind ourselves why.

For one thing, college football has Ralphie, Uga, Reveille, and Smokey the Blue Tick Hound. Pro football has Crazy George on too many Jolt Colas.

College football has picnic blankets with candelabras at Havard-Yale, brats on the grill at Michigan-Ohio State, cold beers at the Esso gas pumps before Clemson home games. Pro football has Stadium nachos-now with actual foodlike cheese substance!

College football has Auburn's Tiger Talk radio show with Terry Bowden and calls like the following one:

"Coach Bowden?"
"Yessir."
"This is Bobby Dan Tallbutt down in Huntsville."
"Yessir, Bobby Dan."
"Just wanted to say War Eagle."
"War Eagle, Bobby Dan."

Pro football, meanwhile, has 103 FM's 24-hour Sports Zoo, in which Mad Mike continually screams things to the Captain, such as: "It's time the truth was told!!! Gale Sayers sucked!!!"

College football has the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and a bowl system that, despite its flaws, has produced three stirring games in the last four years that were do-or-die for the ultimate national champion. Pro football has 1) the Super Bowl (average margin of victory in the last 11 years: 22.4) and 2) the Bud Bowl (average margin of IQ points lost by watching it: 22.4).

College football has rich traditions: walking the Grove at Ole Miss, the 12th Man at Texas A&M, dotting the i at Ohio State. Pro football, on the other hand, has rich marketing guys with not enough to do. If pro football had its way, we would have AT&T Presents the i Plan: dotting the i with today's guest dotter -- Willard Scott!

College football has The Notre Dame Victory March, On Wisconsin, Hail to the Victors. Pro football has Houston Oilers No. 1, which goes:

Houston Oilers
Houston Oilers
Houston Oilers No. 1

College football has rivalries that have not changed for 50 years: Army-Navy, Texas-Oklahoma, Stanford-Cal, Florida-Georgia, and about 25 others that keep players awake all night and cause receptionists to answer phones by saying, "Beat Texas, Monolith Oil, how can I help you?" The best pro football can do is Chicago-Green Bay, which hasn't been a decent rivalry since Johnson-Goldwater.

College football is bonfire at Texas A&M, between the hedges at Georgia, up on Rocky Top at Tennessee. Pro football is performance-weighted draft picks offsetting a free agent sell-off to skirt the salary cap.

College has Steward to Westbrook. Pro football has Anaheim to St. Louis.

College football will get you so delirious, you'll wear your school's underwear and throw an Also Receiving Votes Party. Pro football will have you wondering if you can leave early in the fourth in order to get home for the beginning of She's the Sheriff.

College football has Athens, Ga.; Eugene, Ore.; and Madison, Wis. Pro football has not one, but two teams in East Rutherford, N.J.

College football is the high water pants. The lisp. The white visor. Pro football is Buddy Ryan in one of those horrid NFL Properties sweaters in which the team name gets swallowed up in an ocean of fat rolls.

College football is an Ohio State helmet adorned with Buckeyes, a Florida State helmet adorned with hatchets, a Penn State helmet adorned with nothing. Pro football is basically a whole lot of black and teal now, though some teams are trying something vastly different and refreshing: teal and black.

In college football, nobody is a free agent. Nobody gets traded. Nobody sits out their option year. In pro football this off season, more than 200 players changed teams. What you’re basically doing is rooting for your team's uniform design against the other team's uniform design.

College football is yell practice. Point push-ups. Shining the helmets. Pro football is the Buffalo Bills' professional cheerleaders, the Buffalo Jills, who recently formed a union (Chief complaint: Thurman Thomas keeps pretending to lose his helmet in our dressing room).

College football is LSU's Tiger Stadium at night. Spring football in Strawberry Canyon at Cal. Annapolis when the leaves turn. Pro football is owners fanning themselves in the pleasure boxes at the Pontiac Silverdome.

College football is the Southern University Jaguar Band halftime show, runny makeup on homecoming queens, a 92-year-old halfback at midfield waving to alumni with long memories. Pro football is a halftime show with Michael Jackson attempting a groin pull.

College football has Keith Jackson saying, "Whoa Nellie, we're fixin' to have a barn burner!" Pro football has Beasley Reece and Jerry Glanville discussing the roll-up-zone.

A college football player will tell you he loves his team, will play there for four years, and will wear his school ring the rest of his life. A pro football player will tell you he loves his team, will play there for six months, sign with a team in the same division, play for six other teams before his career is over -- and wear his school ring for the rest of his life.