Out west, it's just different.
The Phoenix area probably has 10x the people of Gainesville, FL, but I doubt there are more actual college football fans here than there. There's plenty of ASU bumper stickers, but that's just taking a side between UofA/ASU. They're not actually fans of college football. They couldn't name ASU's quarterback...and they have a damn sticker on their car.
In Gville, you've got a UF flag in every other front yard, everyone goes to games, and it's just automatic. ASU and UF both have massive undergrad student populations, but those are just drunk kids going with the flow - looking more forward to the party after the game than the game itself. That's at all schools, imo.
We, here, are football nerds. Actual fans. We make college football a priority in our lives and designate X% of our attention to it. That % is far higher than the bumper sticker brigades of Phoenix or LA or wherever.
College football fandom lives and breathes between central Texas and eastern PA. The rest of the country treats it like it's the Kardashians or America's Got Talent or the Oscars. Something to dip their toe in to have something to talk about in case the subject comes up in social situations.