The NFL Needs a New Feeder System

College football serves many purposes. It gives pride to students and alumni. It provides athletes a chance at an education. Colleges make a lot of money from it. It gives us another day of football.

As a feeder system to the NFL, though, it is woefully inadequate.

The biggest problem with college football is that of scale: there are simply too many colleges for the available talent pool.

Certainly, this serves to bring in a larger audience for the sport (more colleges, more students, alums and promotion), but it does little for the quality of competition.

As a result of the talent disparity, those players who do possess NFL-calibre talent often physically outmatch their opposition.

Brute strength or superior speed is usually enough to succeed at the college level, leaving such players unprepared for the technique-driven and planning-intensive world of pro football.

Quarterbacks, for example, rarely throw against press coverage in college, but that coverage is used frequently at the pro level. The reason? There simply aren't enough corners in college football talented enough to press receivers and get back into coverage.

The realities of college football also causes coaches to adopt schemes that do not exist in the NFL.

Certain offenses (like the spread) are set up to take advantage of the lack of cornerback depth in the college game, while others take advantage of the overall lack of team speed (compared to the pro level).

Take Michael Crabtree's situation, for example. Crabtree, while at Texas Tech, did not run several routes that NFL teams run, because the Texas Tech offense does not employ such routes.

While the college team may benefit in the form of more wins, Crabtree is left relatively unprepared to play a part in an NFL offense.

He will have to learn the routes while simultaneously adjusting to the higher speed and talent in the NFL: things which are, in themselves, hard to compensate for.

Furthermore, players in college do not benefit by their labor. They are forced by the very narrow definition of "student-athlete" to work for free while the colleges and NCAA profit by means of promotion, TV money, and the like.

Supporters justify this situation by noting that the athletes are given the opportunity at a college education by means of scholarships.

That is all well and good, but it should be noted that many players with NFL-level talent aren't given an option: they must either play in college or not at all.

Even missing a year from the college game is a severe detriment to NFL entrance (as Maurice Clarett or former USC receiver Mike Williams could tell you).

What then, would be a sensible solution? Clearly, high school graduates have nowhere near the level of physical development or maturity that the pro game requires.

Perhaps a developmental league ought to be set up for players between high school and the pro game.

Players would receive a modest salary and would receive instruction in pro-style techniques and strategies (the league would be an excellent place to develop coaches as well).

Such a league would consist of only a few teams, placed in areas where the NFL would like to develop its presence. Only the best of the best would be invited to play, ensuring an extremely high level of competition.

The NFL could even market the league, promoting its stars of the future (you laugh, but we live in a world where the draft is a highly-rated event).

Certainly, this could never happen in the real world. Too many people make too much money in the current system for there to be a change.

However, such a change would be the best way to improve the pro game.