The 1970s were a simpler time. A time when college players could play the greatest the NFL had to offer, and the event could almost not turn into a disaster.
When a team from the NFL has a really atrocious season we always get hit with a question surrounding their season. Would a college team be able to take them down?
A more recent example was when the Browns were going through a brutal 2 year stretch from 2016 to 2017 when they finished 1-31. Fans would bring up the fact that Alabama sends a bunch of players to the league every year so there was some thought that Alabama could take down the Browns in this hypothetical game. To say a team full of 18 to 22-year-old student athletes could take down a team of players with a clear physical advantage and years of experience is really a tough argument to make. However, there was a time when we would receive a definitive answer on who would win a college vs NFL game.
Back in 1934, it was decided there would be an annual preseason game matching the best players from all of college football to make a single College All-Stars team to match up against the previous NFL champion. Now this is a lot different from the example I made with the Browns vs Alabama, as these teams were fresh off winning championships. However it was a fascinating dynamic added to the preseason that allowed fans to see which of the best college players could compete with the best NFL players.
Fast forward to July 23, 1976. This annual game has become a staple to the preseason despite the NFL having beat the college all stars 31 of 42 times. This game featured Terry Bradshaw and the Steel Curtain leading the Super Bowl X champion Pittsburgh Steelers into this game against these college all stars who featured 2 hall of famers: Jackie Slater and Lee Roy Selmon.
This game got ugly quickly after the Steelers raced ahead to a 24-0 lead. The weather got out of hand with high winds and lighting affecting the area, so College All-Stars coach Ara Parseghian called a timeout. This is where the fans at Soldier Field decided they would take over the game. They stormed the field and tore down the goal posts even though there was 1:33 left in the third quarter. I have to say 1976 sounds like a good time. Anyways, commissioner Pete Rozelle had no choice but to call the game. This fiasco, along with coaches becoming more and more unwilling to let top draft picks even play in the game, led to the discontinuation of this NFL vs college showcase shortly after.
This type of game does not seem likely to ever take place again. Preseason is looked at as a way to ease players into the team’s system/philosophy and get in-game reps. So we will never know if today’s Alabama or Clemson could take down an NFL team, but through the history of this game, we can see how the best college players matched up with the best NFL players. And we can see what happens when you mix drunk fans, horrendous weather, and weak security, all in one football stadium.
