Although soccer is by far the most popular sport in Nigeria – and in many other places worldwide – American football has also grown its fan base in recent years. The Super Bowl is the pinnacle of the sport and Nigerian fans follow their favorite teams each season.
Not so many sports fans in this country know about college football though. It is only a university level of the game but it is big business in the States and the teams and players are as well known as NFL stars. The top sportsbooks have all the best NCAAF bets available, but if you are new to college football you should take a look at our beginners’ guide.
A Sport in Its Own Right
Most other big American sports have a minor league system that provides the major leagues – such as the NBA, NHL and MLB – with a young crop of players gaining the experience of playing at a higher standard. They are a little like the lower divisions of soccer around the world.
But American Football has no such minor league. The second tier of the sport is essentially the college level. The best college players then move onto an NFL team when their time at university finishes. The teams and the conferences the teams play in are run like sports bodies though – and the money involved would dwarf many professional sports leagues around the world.
Bowl Games
You will have probably heard of the Super Bowl, even if you don’t know too much about American football. But you may not be aware that there are many other bowl games for college teams to compete in. The first was the Rose Bowl, back in 1902, and now there are over 40 bowl games each season.
Traditionally, there was no playoff system to determine a national champion. College teams played in their conferences and attempted to qualify for a bowl game. The sports media and coaches would then rank the teams to award a championship. This was obviously not a satisfactory way of doing things and a playoff is now in place. The bowl games still attract huge interest though.
Champions
Although there is now a College Football Playoff to determine the national champion, there is still some controversy about the procedure. The regular season scores and bowl games still play a part, but a 13-member committee, made up of athletic directors and other college football experts, then picks the top four teams.
Those four teams then play what is effectively two semifinal games to determine the two college teams that compete to become the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) national champion. This process has been in place since 2014, although it is to be expanded to 12 teams from 2024.
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Teams of Note
Before the system was streamlined to make it easier to determine a champion, there was sometimes more than one school that could claim the title. Prestigious universities like Princeton and Yale are the most successful in the history of college football. But these days there is a select group of teams, in what are called the Power Five Conferences, which can realistically challenge for the title.
The Georgia Bulldogs are the reigning champions and have won the last two national championships. They will be favorites to win it again in 2023 but will face stern competition from a familiar set of rivals in Ohio State, Alabama and Michigan. These are all hugely successful universities that are well known for their sporting excellence.
The Fans
While many NFL fans cannot compete with the passion and commitment of soccer fans around the globe, college football fans definitely play their part in the game day experience. The biggest college teams regularly play in front of over 100,000 fans and entire cities are taken over by color-coordinated groups partying for hours before a game.
The noise and passion has to be experienced to be believed and it is quite common for locals to be a fan of the big college team rather than a pro football one. Many states don’t have an NFL team anyway, so the college team becomes the focal point for sports. The fans are an integral part of what makes college football so popular.