Not Ready for Some Football

I have to admin that I feel Steve Rushin's pain. His piece in this week's Sports Illustrated, My Football Failure (registration required), details his shame over his lack of love for the NFL. While I still consider myself a fan of professional football, I find it to be completely overhyped. I liked the NFL better when it was cool to ignore the preseason and players didn't get fined for failing to wear NFL-licensed apparel in public. I'm a much bigger fan of the college game. I like the college game for its imperfections. I think the games are more exciting because the players and coaches are more likely to make a dumb decision than their professional counterparts. Everyone bemoans the lack of a true national championship in college football, but it doesn't really bother me. Division I-A college football is an inherently unfair landscape. I'm happy to watch teams like Oklahoma, USC, Michigan, and nearly every college in the states of Texas and Florida slug it out for the national title while at the same time watching my Purdue Boilermakers fight it out for respectibility in the Big 10 and a win on New Year's Day. So if you see me out on the street on a Sunday afternoon this autumn, it's not because I hate the NFL. I just need to get away from it for a few hours sometimes.