Outside of SEC-fueled ABC, week one of the college football season was a relatively quiet affair in the ratings.
In the season-debut of FOX “Big Noon Saturday,” the weather-delayed Penn State-West Virginia game averaged 2.99 million viewers — unsurprisingly down sharply from Colorado-TCU last year, which featured the Buffaloes debut of Deion Sanders (7.26M). That figure does not include the eventual resumption of play, which averaged 1.59 million.
The pre-delay portion of Penn State’s win was the most-watched college football telecast of the weekend outside of ESPN/ABC. ABC’s four games and ESPN’s North Dakota State-Colorado game on Thursday were the top five.
In other action, Akron-Ohio State averaged 2.97 million in the season debut of the Big Ten on CBS — down from Ohio State-Indiana in the same window last year (4.65M). That led into a primetime UCLA-Hawaii game at 1.13 million, down from Texas Tech-Wyoming a year ago (1.43M).
On NBC, Michigan’s closer-than-expected win over Fresno State averaged 2.56 million — down from West Virginia-Penn State a year ago (3.50M).
In the debut of “Pac-2” football on CW, Idaho State-Oregon State averaged 381,000, preceded by Portland State-Washington State at 223,000.
As previously noted, ABC dominated week one of the season with the four most-watched games of the early season, all featuring an SEC team. The final, Nielsen-only figures for ABC’s games were 8.62 million for USC-LSU on Sunday night, 7.92 million for Notre Dame-Texas A&M, 7.58 million for Clemson-Georgia and 6.35 million for Miami-Florida. (Previously-reported figures for the ABC games also include Adobe Analytics.)
ESPN rounded out the top five with last week’s North Dakota State-Colorado game at 4.76 million. In other ESPN action, Florida State’s Labor Day loss to Boston College averaged 4.44 million, up from Clemson’s loss to Duke a year ago (4.39M). Western Kentucky-Alabama led the Saturday slate with 1.85 million, followed by 1.84 million for Colorado State-Texas, 1.45 million for Virginia Tech-Vanderbilt and 953,000 for New Mexico-Arizona. ESPN2 had no games due to the US Open.
Returning to FOX, UTEP-Nebraska averaged 1.67 million, a figure that does not include the portion that was bumped to FS2 to accommodate the resumption of Penn State-West Virginia. That 99-minute window averaged 223,000. Over on FS1, North Dakota-Iowa State drew 315,000, Wyoming-Arizona State 253,000, UNLV-Houston 172,000 and UConn-Maryland 133,000.
Over on BTN, regional action topped the Saturday slate with 594,000 viewers, followed by 425,000 for Idaho-Oregon and 306,000 for Weber State-Washington. FS1 drew 253,000 for Wyoming-Arizona State.
