For those out of the loop – which is likely most of us – the jargon of American Football can seem impenetrable. Case in point: when US College Football star Nana Osafo-Mensah tells Oliver Callan that he'll be "submitting his film to the draft" to see if he can "get invited to a combine," the blank stares around the country must have been something to behold. Of course, all sports have seemingly impenetrable jargon to those on the outside but there are quite a few people in Ireland who know exactly what "earning a sack" and "forcing a fumble" mean and you imagine a lot of them will be in the Aviva Stadium in August when Notre Dame take on Navy as part of the Aer Lingus College Football Classic Series.

The disarmingly-polite Nana Osafo-Mensah, clad in an Irish rugby jersey, joined Oliver in studio and explained the difference between College Football and professional football – the NFL – in the US:

"You get recruited by different colleges if you have the opportunity to and then once you end up committing to a college, you can play there from anywhere from, at least 3 years, some people even ended up playing about 6 years with Covid, and all the rules of eligibility and all that. So then once you’ve been eligible enough to play in college, then you can basically try to apply – I guess that’s the best word to say – and then you can go to the NFL to where you can submit your film to the draft, see if you can get invited to a combine or you can just compete in your combine out of your school and still get picked up by a professional team."

So now we know. College Football, despite being an amateur sport in the US – like GAA county players, College Football players don’t get paid – is a huge deal and players like Nana can earn themselves career-defining places in professional football teams if they do well in college. The game in the Aviva is completely sold out and, Nana says, it will see some impressive travelling numbers:

"They’re already talking about it being the biggest migration of Americans to Europe in a non-war time, so it’s going to be a pretty cool thing happening in August for it."

Texas-born Nana began playing football when he was in second grade (age 7-8) even though he was more of a basketball fan:

"As I got bigger and stronger more than I got taller, I realised football was going to be a better suit for me. And then, around my junior sophomore year of high school, I started getting recruited by colleges."

"Recruited" in this case means colleges offering scholarship opportunities to come study and play for the football team. Quite a few colleges (or, confusingly, "schools" as they call them in the US) were in for Nana, but he opted for the fightin’ Irish – Notre Dame:

"I didn’t really have a dream school growing up, so I had to go on a lot of visits to find out what school really fit me personally, what school might my family liked best, but Notre Dame ended up being the greatest opportunity for me."

Playing for your dream school isn’t just about football, though, the academic side of college recruitment is taken very seriously, Nana says:

"We’re in class as much as we’re on the field or in the meeting room, so being able to learn how to balance that – it comes with time, you know, the older you get, you learn how to basically manage your time as you get older and just, you learn through people, you learn through coaches, like they really want to help you in any way possible, like they’re not going to just let you struggle and let you fail. As long as you reach out to the support that’s out there for you, you’ll be fine."

As well as excelling on the field, Nana has done pretty well for himself in the classroom. He’s got his primary degree in Political Science and also has a Masters in Business Management. Not bad going for a jock, eh?

You can hear Oliver’s full conversation with Nana by going here.

Notre Dame vs Navy in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic takes place in the Aviva Stadium on 26 August.