College football talent differential
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Jan 2, 2025
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One of the weird and cool things about college football is that there's an insanely wide talent gap between the best and the worst players, as well as the best and the worst teams. That's partly why the Heisman Trophy is sometimes relevant -- occasionally there's a player who is just hands-down better than everyone else. This unfortunately makes some games meaningless, such as all the "cupcake" games at the beginning of the season where a blue-blood team like Alabama or Texas plays an unknown like Tennessee ... State Tech, or Louisiana ... Monroe Community College. Technically these teams are all at the same "level" but realistically there's no way in hell a blue-blood will lose those games.
In the NFL, the talent gap is much less pronounced. "Any given Sunday" means that pretty much any team can beat pretty much any other team on any given Sunday. The NFL is much more uniform, almost predictable. Sure, a great player can have a great game at times. But more often than not, a good offense will find a way to beat a good defense, and a good defense will find a way to stop a good offense. Players are more consistent, and coaching is more intelligent. Talent is distributed fairly evenly around the entire league.
In college football, great players are essentially unstoppable, even in a game between two good teams. This is because the talent isn't spread evenly across the league or even across a single team. A single amazing player can consistently beat a team of pretty good players simply because there's a measurable difference in talent. Being taller, faster, or stronger is still a differentiator at the college level. This difference is smoothed out a bit in the NFL, which is why it's still fun to watch college football. #sports
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