By Dan Goodwin
In the United States college football seems to be one of the popular sports in the entire country, even more popular than professional football in some parts of the country.
College football and the National Football League both have a large following but some of the ratings for each tend to drop a little bit each year. Both levels have extremely passionate players, coaches and especially fans but the passion for college football seems to be unmatched, while there are extremely passionate NFL players, but some are just playing for money and simply happy to be on the team due to their lack of elite skills. In college the difference is that most of the athletes are not being paid despite some receiving Name Image and likeness deals, for those that do not have NIL deals and play it shows how passionate each player is to play football and represent their school. Watching these players compete allows fans to show their passion for the game at both levels as they use this as their escape from reality. College football fans have a large amount of passion for a non-professional level league of a sport, especially in southern schools such as the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia, where not only the some of the top programs in the country are located but where college football is also intertwined with the culture of the South.
In college every game is must win for a team to have a shot to compete for the national championship, whereas in the NFL if a team loses four, five or even six games throughout the year, they can still make the postseason and still have a chance to win the Super Bowl. With the way that the college football playoffs are set up, the best teams are sometimes not even selected to play in the bowl games that are part of the college football playoff, compared to the NFL where the best seven teams in each of the two conferences are in the playoffs with the highest ranked team earning a first-round bye. In College football there seems to be more intensity added to the regular season because sometimes the best teams do not have enough votes to participate in the College Football Playoff to have the chance to play for the national championship. It shows that even if you are favorites to win the national championship, there is always a chance whether it is big or small that you might not even have a chance to play for it.
According to GameDay Culture ( https://gamedayculture.com/college-football-popular/#why-is-college-football-so-popular ), college football has its fair share of rivalries throughout its history such as Alabama vs Auburn and Michigan vs Ohio State. Michigan vs Ohio state is filled with much anticipation that it is referred to every year as “the game” as it is a day that is always circled on both teams’ calendars. Former Michigan running back Rob Lytle said “If you could play the greatest game of your life, you would play it that day.” which shows how much every player wanted to play in that game. Compared to the NFL with its historic rivalries such as the Green Bay Packers vs the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles vs the Dallas Cowboys as ranked by Pro Football Talk ( https://www.profootballnetwork.com/ranking-the-nfls-top-5-greatest-rivalries/ ), have had many historic moments between the teams as well as both fanbases hating the opposition with a passion. Both levels have intense rivalries but in college they only face once a year whereas in the NFL they play each other twice in some cases due to being in the same division which adds more intensity to it.
There is no denying that college football is one of the biggest sporting events to take place in the USA and some could argue that it is better than the professional level of football. When you add all the elements of the college level together it can be easy to see how people can like it more than or just as much as the NFL.