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LOL this thread is amazing... a real insight into some of the boorish southern hicks and their retarded "college football is god" mentality. We like other sports in the North because we are a more sophisticated culture up here.
Right... because watching sports is so sophisticated.
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It's more interesting to follow multiple championship quality teams in many different sports competing at a very high level, then to be completely obsessed with one sport year round. Talk about booooringgggg... so there's your answer, in a nutshell.
I said team sports.
We play golf and tennis, we water ski and snow ski.. et cetera.. nice weather, you know.
Geez the sarcasm was really lost on you guys. Obviously the Steelers and Giants are accomplished teams, but I still hate them anyway, especially the Steelers. I actually dont mind the Giants that much.
Oh lol, I thought you were serious, I don't watch football (I only saw when the Giants bodied the Packers and the Patriots when they won the Super Bowl lol). I can't even play football video games lol.
I think college football is a little bit more of an "acquired taste." I absolutely love it, far and above pro football, and I live in the midwest.
Pro football is more commercial... marketing, media exposure, fanstasy football, and gambling all play a big part in the popularity of pro football. It's easier to understand. The champion is determined through a straightforward playoff and the Super Bowl, the most hyped event on Earth.
College football is a different animal. It's about history, tradition, rivalries, conference prestige, "haves" vs "have nots", and dynasties. The Rose Bowl. Recruiting. The variety of different stadiums, atmospheres and styles of play. Offenses that range from the spread to the wishbone. The goofy way that they determine a "champ."
It's really not as easy to understand or appreciate for the casual fan. That's why pro football will always be more popular.
But for those of us who "get it"... pro football doesn't hold a candle to college football and never will. And, unfortunately for those who are in the Northeast, the best college football is not played there.
Geez the sarcasm was really lost on you guys. Obviously the Steelers and Giants are accomplished teams, but I still hate them anyway, especially the Steelers. I actually dont mind the Giants that much.
The context in which your statement was written didn't come across like sarcasm at all. When in doubt, use those emoticons they provide in section to the right called "smiles". The blue face with the eyes looking upward and the slightly tilted mouth at the very bottom center is for sarcasm.
I use these a lot because many times people cannot understand the tongue in cheek style that I use when writing. This seems to be the only way to avoid miscommunication.
LOL this thread is amazing... a real insight into some of the boorish southern hicks and their retarded "college football is god" mentality. We like other sports in the North because we are a more sophisticated culture up here.
Close, but you're way off. I'd say that the truth lies somewhere between local talent and accessibility. The fact is, most of the South is relatively rural. Since they have less major cities (and newer major cities), they have less professional sports teams. On top of all that, most college football fans do follow professaional sports. At school, people followed the Braves and either the Panthers or Falcons (depending on if they were from Carolina or Georgia). They simply cared about our college team more.
As far as local talent goes, most college teams recruit locally. Yes, teams like Florida, Georgia, etc will recruit anywhere, but much of the talent is home-grown. There were several players on Clemson who my friends had played against in high school. Why wouldn't people follow local stars playing for the college that is located in the area that you live?
I am born/raised in metro Boston (so I guess I'm "sophisticated" to you), and I care more about Clemson football than I do the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, or Bruins. So much for that argument.
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Oh and to the idiot ITG southerner, yeah I bet you beat up a hockey player... a little kid in school that plays hockey LMFAO!!
Dude, that's so hilarious! Are you the reincarnation of George Carlin?
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I watched my pens win the cup this past year (the greatest trophy in sports) and I must say I feel sorry for all of you southerners that miss out on this fast and exciting sport.
I agree that the Cup is the best trophy in sports, but why do you feel sorry for Southerners? Most of them don't care about hockey for totally legit reasons (mainly the fact that they don't have pond-skating as children like we have up here). The NHL is easily the least-popular major sport...so it's not just Southern people who aren't watching. It's also everyone West of Chicago...mainly anyone who doesn't live in Detroit, Buffalo or Pittsburgh.
The context in which your statement was written didn't come across like sarcasm at all. When in doubt, use those emoticons they provide in section to the right called "smiles". The blue face with the eyes looking upward and the slightly tilted mouth at the very bottom center is for sarcasm.
I use these a lot because many times people cannot understand the tongue in cheek style that I use when writing. This seems to be the only way to avoid miscommunication.
Yeah, I use them too, but I didn't realize it wouldn't be obvious. I'm a Redskins fan (but a bigger Ravens fan) and even I can admit they suck, and as you guys said the Steelers and Giants are recent Super Bowl Champs.
Simple answer: the Ivy League dropped out of the game.
Yale, Harvard, and Princeton were football powerhouses and pioneers in the same time period schools like Michigan, Notre Dame, Alabama, Oklahoma, USC and Tennessee were making names for themselves. They just saw the trend to a more professional sport and wanted to keep the sport they created collegiate, amateur and pure. They also didn't want to sacrifice student quality for athlete quality. They stopped trying to be nationally competitive back around the early to middle 20th century. When the NCAA divided everything up into 1A and 1AA (now bowl and championship subdivisions), The Ivy League schools fully withdrew from major college football, and now they don't even participate in the FCS playoff. Besides, most college football programs use football to advertise their school, but everyone already knows who the Ivy league schools are.
In absence of the Ivy leagues schools, the Northeast has a very weak state-run higher education system when compared to the rest of the country. That's because the Ivies are there, in addition to hundreds of private schools all over the region. The largest ones in this region just don't have the unification that the big states in other parts of the country have. They do well to reach FCS football status. There are about 20 FCS schools in a small area around New York City alone.
The problem was that the colonial states just had more privately-run schools to start out with. North Carolina and Virginia were two of the first major state schools, but there were no answers to them in the north with the Ivy League presence there. The idea of a state flagship and land grant became popular around the 1850s, when the country was expanding westward. Today there are quite a few FCS private schools in the south and north in the original 13 states, and not nearly as many in the later states. These states were not so divided in their educational options.
True there are many small regional institutions scattered over the later states, but they are public, and by rule governed by the same board of education. If, say, Louisiana-Lafayette wanted to become as big as LSU, there would be nothing to stop it if they were both private. But since they are both in the Louisiana system of public schools, LSU gets to keep its prestige and pre-eminence over the ULMs, La. Techs and ULLs of the world. The same applies in Ohio, California (Cal and UCLA are the only two that apply in the Pac-10, since USC and Stanford are private), Alabama, Illinois, and Texas.
Because people here waste their time learning and becoming educated, not playing a meaningless game for entertainment. This isn't Ol' Miss.
This post doesn't help, either.
Some of my fellow New Englanders like to feign some sort of superiority complex about things that other Americans enjoy; and while I don't watch college football religiously ( or even weekly), I don't mind watching a bowl game or two. ( I confess that I haven't watched the National Championship game in many years)...
Many northeastern Americans will happily "waste their time" watching pro football, though, at the occasional expense of their education; education does take place at schools outside the Ivy League..
Some of my fellow New Englanders like to feign some sort of superiority complex about things that other Americans enjoy; and while I don't watch college football religiously ( or even weekly), I don't mind watching a bowl game or two. ( I confess that I haven't watched the National Championship game in many years)...
Many northeastern Americans will happily "waste their time" watching pro football, though, at the occasional expense of their education; education does take place at schools outside the Ivy League..
Yep as well as watch college basketball which is huge in the Northeast and watch lacrosse which btw, I like.
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