A pair of marquee matchups borne of conference realignment delivered in the ratings for CBS and ABC.
Saturday’s USC-Michigan college football game averaged 6.32 million viewers on CBS, marking the largest college football audience of the weekend and a 37% increase over Mississippi-Alabama in the same window last year (4.61M). The Wolverines’ win was the first CBS window this season to post an increase over last year (six telecasts).
Ranking a close second for the weekend, ABC averaged 6.27 million for Tennessee-Oklahoma on Saturday Night Football — more than doubling Texas-Baylor last year (2.63M).
Both matchups would not have existed prior to the most recent round of realignment, which placed USC in the Big Ten and Oklahoma in the SEC. Among intra-conference games this season, only last week’s Georgia-Kentucky game had a larger audience (6.60M).
Overall, the games rank seventh and eighth for the season. USC-Michigan is the only one of the top eight that did not involve an SEC team.
Placing a distant third for the week, Illinois-Nebraska averaged 4.21 million viewers on FOX Friday night. Additional details on that game are available here. Returning to Saturday action, Marshall-Ohio State drew 3.96 million on FOX “Big Noon Saturday” — up 83% from Oklahoma-Cincinnati last year (2.17M) — and the same network scored 3.64 million for Colorado’s overtime win over Baylor, up 146% from Oregon State-Washington State a year ago (1.48M).
The Buffaloes continue to lag well behind last year’s pace in viewership. In week four of last season, their loss to Oregon averaged 10.03 million on ABC.
Beyond the top five, ABC averaged 2.73 million for UCLA-LSU — down 73% from the aforementioned Colorado-Oregon game last year. That trails every 3:30 PM ET edition of the “SEC on CBS” since late in the 2018 season (Missouri-Tennessee: 2.03M), though it should be noted that the SEC is now scheduling competing games in that slot. The Tigers’ win went head-to-head with Arkansas-Auburn on ESPN, which at 2.02 million doubled BYU-Kansas last year (1.03M).
ESPN’s game had a lead-in from another SEC matchup — Florida-Mississippi State at 2.64 million (+21%) — while ABC had a weaker lead-in from NC State-Clemson in the ACC (1.95M, -71%).
In other action, FOX drew 2.14 million for Utah-Oklahoma State — up 62% from UCLA-Utah last year (1.32M). NBC drew 1.89 million for Iowa-Minnesota and 1.69 million for Miami (Ohio)-Notre Dame, both unsurprisingly down from the network’s marquee Ohio State-Notre Dame contest last year (9.98M). ESPN scored 1.50 million for a late night matchup of Kansas State and BYU (+30%) and 1.25 million for its Miami-USF lead-in (-49%).
Struggling Florida State’s first win of the season — against new conference opponent Cal — averaged 887,000 on ESPN2, down 18% from UAB-Georgia last year (1.08M). ESPN2 fared better with Kansas-West Virginia earlier in the day (1.15M), which more-than-tripled last year’s comparable Virginia Tech-Marshall game (319K).
