The fate of Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, and the hype surrounding said fate, helped ABC to its highest college football overnight rating in over a month.
Saturday Night Football, featuring Notre Dame/Stanford in 74% of the country, drew a 5.3 overnight rating on ABC — down 15% from Oklahoma/Oklahoma St. on Thanksgiving weekend last year (6.2), but up 33% from regional action featuring Oregon/Arizona last week (4.0).
The 5.3 overnight is the highest for any college football game on ABC since Texas/Oklahoma on October 17 (6.4), and the highest for Saturday Night Football since regional action featuring Oklahoma/Miami on October 3 (5.5).
Saturday Night Football drew the highest overnight rating of any college football game on broadcast last weekend, even topping Florida St./Florida on CBS (5.1).
Earlier in the day, regional action featuring Miami/South Florida drew a 2.8 overnight rating, down 30% from comparable coverage on Thanksgiving weekend last year (4.0), and down 13% from regional action last week (3.2).
