No matter where you go in the country, you are always bound to find unintelligent Skip Bayless-level idiotic sports fans. They make outlandish claims based on the hype with no intelligence involved whatsoever. A particular debate that has always blown my mind is that people, time and time again, believe that a college football team could beat an NFL team.
This was a topic that was made popular back in 2012 when then South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Steve Spurrier went on the Dan Patrick show and said that Alabama looks like they could beat a couple NFL teams. Special emphasis on “looks like they could”. This seems like more of a generous praise to Alabama and the dominating success they were having to that point in the season (against amateur teams). Honestly, any diehard football fan (and especially someone with the experience of Steve Spurrier) should know what a joke the idea of a college team beating an NFL team actually is.
Now, this is from 2012 why am I talking about it now? Because unfortunately there are people who watch a decent amount of football that do not comprehend this. In no other sport is an amateur team less likely to beat a professional team. I will say baseball is up there too, but if you catch a highly motivated phenom college pitcher on a great day, there is a small, small chance, but in football, it would take far more than one player’s star performance.
Now, in a previous article, I discussed how absurd the fact that the Super Bowl champions used to play a college all-star team was (interesting, but absurd). In that article, I make mention of how the risk of injury and lack of significant meaning makes the game seem pretty pointless. Putting that aside for a second, it’s simply two completely different levels of play. We are talking about more experienced, stronger professionals versus amateurs! Not everyone (or even a majority of players) from a great Alabama team are going to play as professionals. I would even put my foot down saying that the 2001 Miami Hurricanes (highly considered as one of the great college teams ever), would beat the 2008 Detroit Lions (0-16) or the recent Cleveland Browns teams (complete garbage). It’s not like those awful pro teams lost every game by 40-50 points! Also, not to mention they played all their games against other pro teams! And on the flip side, those great college teams had all their success against amateur teams!
I would love to see a bad NFL team take on a great college team, just so everyone could see what would really happen. I get buying into the hype of how great a college team like a recent Alabama squad is or how bad a pro team like a recent Browns team is. But it’s time for all fans to start using their brains a little bit!