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Christopher Boan has been covering sports and sports betting for more than seven years, including stops at ArizonaSports.com, the Tucson Weekly and the Green Valley News.
Most Well-Known College Football Towns
When it comes to household names at the highest level of collegiate football, few brands have asserted themselves more than “blue blood” programs like Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio State over the years.
Unsurprisingly, the city that hosts the NCAA football program with the most national titles outside of the Ivy League (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) has the most name brand recognition of any college town in the Football Bowl Subdivision, with the Crimson Tide and their 16 national championships beating out other elite college towns like Athens, Georgia (UGA) and Ann Arbor, Michigan (for the Michigan Wolverines) when it came to being a college town household name in 2024.
Luckily for Athens’ Bulldogs, while they finished behind their SEC rivals from Tuscaloosa in name recognition, they still lead the way when it comes to 2024 CFP title futures, with Bet365 giving Kirby Smart’s team +350 odds of winning it all this year, ranking ahead of Oregon (+375), Ohio State (+450) and Texas (+500). Georgia sports betting is still not a reality, but stick with BetGeorgia.com for updates into 2025.
Utilizing the quiz website, Sporcle.com, we used their quiz, “NCAA Division 1 FBS Location (Cities)” that has been taken by 2,000+ people. We determined the most well-known college football towns of the percentage who got each school and city matched correctly.
Note: We left out any city that is the same name as the school.
Most Well-Known College Football Towns
Overall Rank | School | City | % Correct By Quiz Takers |
1 | Alabama | Tuscaloosa, AL | 88.0% |
2 | Georgia | Athens, GA | 87.4% |
3 | Michigan | Ann Arbor, MI | 87.3% |
4 | Colorado | Boulder, CO | 86.4% |
5 | California | Berkeley, CA | 86.1% |
6 | Florida | Gainesville, FL | 85.6% |
7 | Army | West Point, NY | 84.8% |
T-8 | Georgia Tech | Atlanta, GA | 84.7% |
T-8 | LSU | Baton Rouge, LA | 84.7% |
T-10 | Michigan State | East Lansing, MI | 83.7% |
T-10 | Texas | Austin, TX | 83.7% |
12 | Nebraska | Lincoln, NE | 83.6% |
13 | North Carolina | Chapel Hill, NC | 83.5% |
14 | Arizona | Tucson, AZ | 83.4% |
15 | Wisconsin | Madison, WI | 83.3% |
Which CFB Teams Do Americans Know The Most?
Leading the way in Sporcle’s NCAA football quiz was the college town that employed Nick Saban as their head football coach until this fall, with Tuscaloosa and the Crimson Tide scoring 88% overall to beat out Athens, Georgia (87.4%) and Ann Arbor, Michigan (87.3%).
Other college towns that scored highly on the CFB quiz were Boulder, Colorado (home of the Colorado Buffaloes, at 86.4%) and Berkeley, California (home of the California Golden Bears, at 86.1%), while Gainesville, Florida (home of the Florida Gators, at 86.1%) and West Point, New York (home of the Army Golden Knights, at 84.8%) were in slots six and seven nationally.
Rounding out the NCAA football name recognition top 10 were programs like the Atlanta (home of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets) and Baton Rouge, Louisiana (home of the LSU Tigers) at 84.7% each, while East Lansing, Michigan (home of Michigan State) and Austin, Texas (home of the Texas Longhorns) were next up at 83.7% apiece.
When it comes to college football, they don’t make college towns like those that reign supreme in the SEC, with the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs ranking atop the country’s university epicenter popularity chart in 2024.
USA Today photo by Jay Janner.
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