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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 4351589, member: 289"] College football is my favorite level of any sport. I grew up in a college town with the atmosphere that the local team could put our burg on the map, (as opposed to big city fans who know they are on the map and just want their teams live up to the image they already have of their city). That creates an extra layer of longing. I love the color in the uniforms and the collegiate enthusiasm, also that every community in America, not just the big markets, has a real team, (as opposed to a minor league assemblage of players), to root for. It draws the nation together, much like March Madness, except that it lasts longer: Fall Madness. I like the fact that different teams have different styles, unlike the pros where anything that works gets quickly blended into what everybody was already doing. What I have never liked about college football is that some schools have advantages that are difficult and over the long term impossible to overcome. Location is huge: you need to be in big-time recruiting areas. It helps to be a large state school with taxpayer's money, low tuition and academic requirements and the allegiance of the entire state. Alumni who are on the Forbes 400 sure helps. Five-star facilities are a big deal and winning breeds winning while losing breeds losing. Syracuse has been a middle weight program for much of the two-platoon era, (our best teams have been light heavyweights but we have had to play some heavyweights and are in a division full of light heavies.) The impact of NIL and the transfer portal isn't fully known yet. We might lose a good player to someone higher in the pecking order at some point but it hasn't happened yet. We've been the team higher in the pecking order a few times and we've benefited from players who left the football factories looking for playing time. I also wonder if NIL might be a bigger deal in the smaller markets that in the larger markets. What would Buddy Boeheim have gotten at Rutgers? The saving grace is that all those recruiting advantages get the football factories the inside track on recruiting teenagers. In what profession can you tell how good a teenager is going to be when he fully matures. I once suggested that if a player in an NBA starter at age 25, it's probable he was 20% of what he was going to become when he left high school and 80% when he left college and Jim agreed with that assessment. Football is also a sport with certain key positions from a game can be dominated: quarterback, running back, defensive end, linebacker. If a middleweight can develop an un-the-radar player in a dominate player at one of those positions on each side of the ball, they are no longer a middleweight. The 2010 Auburn team won the national championship that was probably comparable to a Syracuse team that had both a senior Donovan McNabb and a senior Dwight Freeney on it, (they were both on our 1998 teams but Freeney was an injured freshman). The names were Cam newton and Nick Fairly, but it's the same situation. Or a football factor team can get an over-rated 5 star playing a key position and be less than they'd normally be. Clemson has DJ Uiagalelei but we have Garrett Shrader and it looks like our guy is better. So we always have hope and that's what being a fan is all about. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?