On one of the most memorable college football Saturdays in recent memory, the SEC took a rare backseat behind its “power four” rivals.
Saturday’s Ohio State-Indiana college football game averaged 10.38 million viewers on FOX “Big Noon Saturday,” marking the largest audience of the season on the network, and the fourth-largest overall — trailing only Ohio State-Texas in week two (13.99M), Georgia-Alabama last week (12.24M) and LSU-Mississippi in week three (10.90M), each on ABC.
The Buckeyes’ narrow win, which peaked with 14.27 million in the 3:30 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 97% from Ohio State-Illinois in the same window last year (5.28M).
The Big Ten has now topped the charts in two of the past three weeks, and a Big Ten team has played in the week’s top game four times in seven tries this season — once each on FOX, CBS, NBC and ABC. Three of those four games involved Ohio State, the exception being Wisconsin against Notre Dame in week one.
Placing second for the week, Notre Dame-BYU averaged 9.16 million on ABC’s “Saturday Night Football” — up 37% from Georgia-Auburn last year (6.69M) and the network’s most-watched game without an SEC team since Notre Dame-Miami in week one of last season (10.80M).
The Cougars’ narrow win, which peaked with 13.2 million, was the most-watched Big 12-controlled game since 2022 — when then-Big 12 school Texas hosted Alabama in a game that averaged 10.60 million on FOX.
Not counting “week zero” or the week of the Army-Navy game, this past week was the first since week eleven of the 2023 season in which neither of the two most-watched games featured an SEC team. (Michigan-Penn State and Utah-Washington topped the charts that week.)
The SEC topped out at 8.10 million for Alabama-Tennessee, actually down 7% from last year, when the Oklahoma-Texas Red River Rivalry averaged 8.73 million. Florida-Texas led-in with 4.69 million in the Noon ET window, down a third from Alabama-Missouri last year (6.69M).
Notably, the SEC did not have the week’s top game on any of the ESPN networks. Not only did Notre Dame-BYU lead the way on ABC, but Miami’s overtime win over Florida State topped the charts on ESPN with 3.55 million in the same Saturday night window — up 35% from Florida-Texas A&M a year ago (2.62M) and the fifth-largest on the network (and all of cable) this season. Each of the top five has involved an ACC team.
Georgia’s upset of Auburn led in with 3.46 million, placing just outside of the top five and the most-watched SEC game of the season on ESPN (and all of cable). Viewership more-than-doubled last year’s Iowa State-Colorado game (1.44M).
ESPN2 topped out at 583,000 for North Carolina-Duke, ahead of its Arkansas-Vanderbilt lead-out at 544,000. (ESPNU had no SEC game, and topped out at 236,000 for FIU-Jacksonville State last Tuesday.)
