Steve Spurrier, the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback who is a highly regarded college coach also had a short coaching stint in the NFL with the Washington Redskins, so he should know a thing or two about how much harder it is to compete and win between the two levels. But Spurrier thinks Alabama, who is the number one college ranked football team in the BCS, is good enough to compete in the NFL.
Spurrier was a guest on the Dan Patrick Show and said he believes this year’s Alabama team is good enough to beat some of the weaker NFL teams.
“Alabama, gosh, they look like they could beat a couple of those NFL teams that I’ve watched on Sundays,” Spurrier said. “I think a lot of the odds makers out there, that usually know what’s going on, I’d guess Alabama would be favored by a little bit.”
Posted on Profootballtalk.com by Michael David Smith, his thoughts on what Spurrier said is interesting to say the least.
“A game between an NFL team and a college team would be a game of men against boys. We can celebrate great college football teams for what they are, but pretending they’d have any chance of beating any NFL team is preposterous”, wrote Michael David Smith.
What is interesting is not so long ago, that is exactly what used to take place from 1934-1976. The Chicago Charities College All-Star Game was a preseason football game between the NFL and a team of College All-Star Seniors from the previous year. It became to be known as the College All-Star Football Classic.
After the Super Bowl began the Super Bowl winner was the NFL team pitted against the College All-Stars. Before the Super Bowl, it was the NFL Champion who played in the game every year except the 1935 game involved the runner-up New York Football Giants, instead of the NFL Champion Chicago Bears.
The only year the game wasn’t played was in 1974 due to an NFL Strike.
So how did the College All-Stars fair against the NFL teams over the years?
From 1934-1976 the College All-Stars only won nine times (with one tie).
NINE TIMES? NINE TIMES!!
