Bobbleheads, gift cards and running backs: the weird and wonderful world of US college football

The appeal of American football is that it’s basically chess with violence, writes James Moore, as he shares his passion for the world’s only multibillion-dollar sporting enterprise operated by institutions of higher learning

FIU Panthers take on the Arkansas State Red Wolves in this year’s Camellia Bowl (Getty)

Everyone’s heard of the Super Bowl but what about the Camellia Bowl? Or the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl? No, I haven’t been over indulging at an early pre-Christmas lunch. These are real games played by real American football teams, just of the college variety. The NFL has just the one big super-duper all-singing all-dancing TV ratings crazy bowl game. College football, where its stars earn their spurs in what the University of Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger described as an “unpaid full-time internship” for three or four years, has 39 of them. There are 40 if you include college football’s national championship game. Except that doesn’t call itself a bowl.

Confused? The college version of the game is quite good at that. It doesn’t always make a lot of sense. For a start, it’s the world’s only multibillion-dollar sporting enterprise that is operated by institutions of higher learning.

This isn’t the University of Leicester playing the University of Nottingham at football in front of a few pals from the player’s halls of residence, a couple of dog-walkers and one or two family members. The games attract huge crowds and millions of TV viewers. Some of them come from the UK: BT Sport has held the UK rights since its inception in 2013, airing 143 games this year, 123 of them live. The bowl season is treat for gridiron fans. There is a game almost every day from 20 December until the new year. Some of them are wildly entertaining. That might include the famous Idaho Potato Bowl.