Pro Football Or College Football Essay, Research Paper

PRO OR COLLEGE FOOTBALL It’s 4th and goal on the one. The quarter back drops back with five seconds left and down by five. This situation happens all the time in pro and in college football. Pro football and college football have many differences, yet they also have many similarities. The salaries, the rules, overtimes, off-field problems, tournaments, and the number of teams are all different but are also similar in there own ways. One difference between pro and college football are the player’s salaries. Pros get paid with contracts. The better players receive the gigantic salaries like $45 million for three years, while the mediocre receive the minimum like $200 thousand a year. College players do not get paid by contracts. They get paid by scholarships. Some receive full rides with everything paid for and others get nothing but a chance to play for the team. Rules in the Pros are similar to rules in college, but a few are different. College players only have to have 1 foot in bounds while catching the ball. Pros’ must have both feet in bounds for it to be a completion. If a player falls down without any contact in the pro’s, he can get back up and run. In college, if the player’s knees are down, it is a dead ball and they cannot advance the ball any further. The overtime is different because in college the ball is placed on the 20-yard line and each team has one chance to drive the length of the field and score. If the score is still tied after each team has had an opportunity, the game ends in a tie. In the pros, the ref flips a coin and the winner of the toss chooses to receive or to kick. Ten minutes are put back onto the clock, and whoever scores first wins. If neither teams can score, it remains a tie. Off-field problems are very similar in both leagues. The pro’s that get caught doing things illegally can get fined, suspended, kicked off the team, or banned from the league. College players that get caught either get suspended or kicked off the team, which usually forces them to transfer to play for another school.

The tournaments are different because the pro’s have 3 AFC division winners and 3 NFC division winners. Six AFC wildcards, and six NFC wildcards. The division winners all get a bye in the first round while the wildcards all compete to stay alive. The winners from the wildcard games play the division winners until there is one team remaining in both the AFC and the NFC. Those two teams then play for the most important game of the year, the super bowl. They crown the winner the super bowl champs. In college there are about 15 bowls. The best plays the best. The number one-ranked team in the polls plays the number two-ranked team. The winner of each game is the winner of the bowl in which they are in. The total number of teams is much different. In the pro’s there are 26 teams; thirteen in the AFC and 13 in the NFC. In college there are just about an uncountable amount of teams. Almost every college or University has a football team, but they are split into divisions usually according to the size of the school. In the NFL teams play 16 games in the regular season. They play each team in their division twice. If they make the play-offs and even the super bowl, the most they can play is 20 games in a year. College plays 11 games a year and if they make a bowl they play 12 games. I believe pro football is better then college football because it is more exciting, and they are professionals, not amateurs. Many people say the pro’s just do it for the money. Some do, but college is the same way. Some students play for the love of the game while others play to get free rides or because they cannot do anything else. The tournaments are better in the pro’s because there can be a best team without controversy. The way the leagues are set up, and how they play the games is the reason pro football is better then college football. College football and pro football is different in there own ways, yet it is easy to see there are many similarities in what happens on and off the field.