Many parts of Linux kernel are really, really nice C code. Sadly, in my experience most C code is not especially nice. I don't know how this extends to the football metaphor, but certainly I wish most of the C code I have encountered (not to mention written) in my career to date was one tenth as neat.
On balance, I'd say there are other languages (Erlang, Python) where I've personally found the median quality, and level of expression, to be substantially higher (for the random subset of code I've read and my own standards, clearly YMMV.)
The other generalisation is "other languages". Which "other languages" are they? What other projects (despite the Linux kernel) are they reading, and in what contexts?
You can find beautiful or precise code is almost any language if you try hard enough. You can find ugly or obfusticated code in nearly every language without barely trying at all.