Snapping a streak of five-straight wins by the SEC on CBS, it was the ACC on ABC that topped the ratings charts in week eight of the college football season.
ABC aired the two most-watched college football games in week eight of the season, with Syracuse-Clemson at a 2.7 rating and 4.75 million viewers and the Texas-Oklahoma State lead-out at a 2.5 and 4.46 million — both up double-digits from last year’s equivalent games.
Each game won its timeslot despite tough competition from the weekend’s third and fourth-place games, respectively — Iowa-Ohio State on FOX at a 2.4 and 4.38 million and Mississippi-LSU on CBS at a 2.3 and 3.86 million, which were also up double-digits from last year.
Rounding out the top five, ABC scored a 2.0 and 3.54 million for Minnesota-Penn State on Saturday Night Football — up modestly from Ohio State-Indiana last year (1.9, ~3.4M).
Placing just outside of the top five, Mississippi State-Alabama combined for 3.59 million across ESPN (3.46M) and the ESPN2 Pat McAfee simulcast (129K) Saturday night — down double-digits from last year’s Tennessee-Alabama game on ESPN alone (~4.7M). The top-ten UCLA-Oregon game on FOX drew a 1.8 and 3.34 million, the most-watched Pac-12 conference game this season but down from the same matchup in the same window on ABC last year (2.1, ~3.9M).
Other notable weekend results include a near-season high for FS1, which drew its second-largest audience this season for a matchup of top 25 teams between Kansas State and TCU (0.8, 1.53M), and a rare ESPN2 win over ESPN in the Noon window as Kansas-Baylor (0.44, 744K) edged Cincinnati-SMU (0.40, 682K).
The full list of week eight college football ratings is below, and the full season of charts is available on the following page.
Week eight college football ratings
