4) The cheerleaders -- They're selling the same thing in different packaging. Nike vs. Victoria's Secret. Gilmore Girls vs. Nip/Tuck.

5) The attitude -- Football coaches and players are a serious bunch, by nature. But when you walk into an NFL locker room on Wednesday and start your inquisition, it won't take long to understand that you are in somebody's office. When you talk to a college player (which, by the way, almost never happens in a locker room, because college locker rooms are almost universally off limits to the media), you understand that you are in somebody's pseudo-dorm.

Example: A few weeks ago I'm talking to Chicago Bears' veteran center Olin Kreutz. I ask him about emerging (not so much after last week) quarterback Rex Grossman. Kreutz offers some nice sound bite-ish platitudes, but also says, "They don't draft guys that high if they're not good.'' That's a business lesson.

A few weeks later I'm talking to Louisville running back Kolby Smith about quarterback Brian Brohm. He also offers some sound bite-ish platitudes, but not much more. "We believe in Brian,'' he says.

From a personal interaction standpoint, one group is comprised of grown men making a living. The other is a group of young men playing for fun, and most of them will never make a living at the game. Nobody's dinner is on the line in college football.

As for the coaches, there's minimal difference beyond their W2s. With few exceptions, they treat football as if it's -- to borrow from the Matthew Broderick 1983 flick War Games -- Global Thermonuclear War. That's endemic to the breed.

6) The Comebacks -- College games are never over, because you can always see the 35-point quarter. Emotions rule and swing wildly. Execution gives way to momentum. College teams can ride a wave of euphoria from four touchdowns behind; in the NFL, euphoria is generally gone by the middle of the first quarter and professionalism takes over.

Yes, I saw the Bears-Cardinals Monday night game on Oct. 16, in which the Bears won with an improbable fourth-quarter comeback. It was, in many ways, the game of the year in the NFL , precisely because of the suddenness and breadth of the Bears' comeback. (And, of course, because of Dennis ''We let 'em off the hook!'' Green's postgame meltdown). NFL teams generally don't let 'em off the hook.

Part of the reason:

7) The clock -- College football has tightened up and mercifully shortened its games this fall by instituting a running clock on changes of possession, a funky alteration that leads to the odd usage of timeouts and teams running onto the field to get off a snap. When television timeouts were factored in, four-hour games were common. But the college game also stops the clock on first downs, which is gold to the comebacking team.

In the NFL, the clock runs. The game gets shorter. You can count the possessions before they happen. Miracle comebacks can only happen when there is a flood of turnovers.

8) The youth vs. the maturity -- Take your pick. On Sundays you get fully-formed adults like Peyton Manning, who can execute the daylights out of a game plan and afterward sell you Gatorade and DirecTV. NFL football exists at the top of the athletic food chain, with the best athletes and the best coaches. We feel comfortable criticizing because most of the participants are being paid millions of dollars and therefore should expect to get ripped. Bottom line: They are vastly better than their college counterparts.

On Saturdays (again, on Thursdays, too, and some other days, as well) you get emerging athletes like Louisville's Brohm, who one week shredded West Virginia like he was the next Dan Marino and Thursday night came (understandably) unhinged in the second half while facing a relentless Rutgers pass rush. We feel a little awkward criticizing them because they are just college athletes. And even if they are very nearly professionals, they are poorly compensated and their performances are less reliable. Bottom line: They are vastly more unpredictable than their professional counterparts.

They play the same sport at both levels, but they play different games.