Arizona State Sun Devils fans cheer

Wembley hosts the Union Jack Classic Saturday with college football hitting the capital.

FOX Sports analyst Robert Griffin III sat down with members of the UK media to discuss the clash and dropped a bombshell about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's plans.

College football is hitting the famous arch
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College football is hitting the famous archCredit: Getty

"I know Roger Goodell very well. They 100% want to bring the Super Bowl abroad," he explained. "Not a lot of Americans are excited about that. But that is the truth. And it is what it is."

The NFL already has an established foothold in the UK with regular games for almost two decades.

However the Kansas Jayhawks and Arizona State Sun Devils will now attempt to ride the wave with the first Division 1 game on these shores.

RG3 -- in town as Fox's in-game analyst for the Big Noon Kick-off show, which will also broadcast live from London -- believes football fans need to experience it to broaden their horizons, with tickets still available via the Union Jack Classic site.

"I would say is, I actually call NFL games as well," he added. "If you want to be a real NFL football fan, you have to be a college football fan, because that's the feeder system into the league.

"You get to know these guys at a much younger age, you get to see them grow and develop. And I think that's what actually builds true fandom.

"Americans have grown up with this game. I've played this game since I was 11 years old. There's some in the NFL right now that started playing when they were three, four.

"We know the history of the game. And it's hard to know the history if you only know a guy from Patrick Mahomes playing for the Kansas City Chiefs. He sat his rookie year behind Alex Smith, and then he became the second greatest quarterback of all time.

"Well, how much more of a fan are you going to be that, hey, he went to Texas Tech and yeah, they didn't win a lot of games, but he played some very exciting football. And that's why Andy Reid found him because of his arm talent and his ability to make off schedule plays.

"I just think it actually sinks your roots deeper into the ground by becoming a college football fan. So you can truly follow these guys. And that jersey that you put on, that you buy, that you spend all your hard earned money on actually means more to you because you've been following those players longer."

Sun Devils fans will bring the noise
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Sun Devils fans will bring the noiseCredit: Getty
The atmosphere is closer to European crowds
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The atmosphere is closer to European crowdsCredit: Getty

The NFL is the pinnacle, but college football has plenty going for it and in many ways is a superior product.

Griffin III added: "The fandom around college football is better. It just is. The traditions and all that stuff are definitely more deep rooted. The rivalries are better than the NFL rivalries.

"And I just think it adds to it. There is no NFL without college and there's no college football without the NFL."

Griffin knows plenty about European fandom thanks to his marriage to Estonian heptathlete Grete and thinks college football has a higher ceiling than the NFL.

"I actually think it could have more success," he said. "I'm actually, I know over here we call it soccer. Over there you guys call it football. But I'm actually a world football fan.

"One reason is because my wife is European. And the thing that I noticed most about the fans in Europe and around the world when it comes to what we call football across the world is the fandom is different.

Mahomes was a star long before he joined the Chiefs
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Mahomes was a star long before he joined the ChiefsCredit: Getty
The Jayhawks make history in London
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The Jayhawks make history in LondonCredit: Getty

"The way that the crowds interact with the players. and in America, I put it this way, you know, you've got cheerleaders and the Yale leaders. in America, in American football that kind of lead the crowd through the stuff that they need to do. Whereas in Europe, it's the crowd that leads it.

"So I think that is more similar to college football in the environment of how crazy it can be. So I think there might be an opportunity to connect better with the world population.

"Especially there's more teams, you know, in the NFL, there's 32. In college football, I mean, it feels like there's 400 different teams that you can fall in love with. So I think that gives more variety and allows the fans to maybe even, you know, narrow in on different regions.

"So I think that's going to be the cool part. And then the college fans are going to travel over to Europe. And that's going to be just an environment.

"They know how to party. Arizona State is known as the party state and party and the party school of college. So last time I checked, you know, the Europeans know how to handle their alcohol. So that'll be a really fun experience for the college fans coming over and I think it'll endear them to the Europeans.

Tickets for Arizona State vs Kansas can be purchased now on the Union Jack Classic website.

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