Wow now I’m even more shocked! Do you have any American in you?
I’m a diehard NY Giants fan - grew up about 10-15 mins drive away from the stadium so growing up I would be going to games here and there especially when we had great teams. The 2007-08 and 2011-12 super bowl years were the most amazing times I have had as a sports fan as that is the only two championships I have ever witnessed a team I really strongly support win something. The giants, knicks, and Iran national Football team are the 3 teams I would call myself a diehard of and the only one to actually win silverware in my lifetime has been the Giants.
For college, I’m a Scarlet Knight (Rutgers). It’s been while since we have had a good team, pretty much since we switched conferences to the big 10 (arguably the toughest conference). We’ve had teams that have been ranked in the top 25 our best team was that 2007 team that was ranked either 4 or 5 and the years following that maintained decent ranks until the switch to the big 10. The switch of playing in the big east to going to the big 10 is like going from playing in the championship to the premier league pretty much so we need to be a bit patient and let our program have a chance to develop and recruit better (which is already happening).
Unlike most Americans, I have a slight preference to the NFL just because I think that it is the best professional sport in America as I previously mentioned and also maybe because the team I support is regarded as one of the most successful franchises in the league but aside from that I think just the overall level of talent in the NFL versus college makes it more entertaining.
College football is the most comparable thing Americans have to English football - doesn’t matter if your talking about a team in the premier league or league two....they will always have support and a fan base. In college football it is the same way. I have family in Arkansas and literally everywhere you go all you see is razorback logos everywhere.....and I mean everywhere.
None at all I'm afraid! (Although my aunt was a GI bride and lived in Texas for many years). And yeah, you're right about pre-season, but us Browns fans will take any win we can get! (And after the Albion's performance at Watford, it's something to cling on to).
For the college game I look out for USC (Trojans). I wouldn't say I'm a fan as such but one of my relatives by marriage went to USC and is a die-hard fan. I'm going to be seeing him next week (we're in California on holiday then) and we'll have a good chat about football. No one else in my family is interested! He has no interest in the NFL, although he looks out for former Trojans and hopes they do well. He lives in San Diego, born and raised there, and says he didn't mind when the Chargers left! (That's one thing of course a college will never do: Notre Dame isn't suddenly going to re-locate to Arizona for example).
Anyway, hopefully we'll see you on this thread for the rest of the season. I'm guessing my pre-season optimism will have disappeared long before the end of October!