College Football Viewership Off to Hot Start After Texas-Ohio State Thriller

The college football season is off to another hot start in TV ratings as Texas and Ohio State once again delivered record viewership numbers for a second year in a row.

ABC averaged nearly 14 million viewers for Saturday night’s Ohio Sate–Texas thriller that saw the Longhorns erase a 20-point fourth-quarter deficit to stun the Buckeyes 24-23 in Austin. That marks the most-watched Week 2 college football game on record, and the most-watched regular-season matchup on an ESPN platform in a decade. Viewership peaked at 16.4 million viewers Saturday night.

Last year’s Texas–Ohio State game in Columbus drew 16.6 million viewers on Fox, marking the most-watched Week 1 college football game on record, as Arch Manning made the biggest start of his young collegiate career up until that point. The Buckeyes won 14–7 with viewership peaking at 18.6 million viewers.

Meanwhile, in Saturday’s other hyped Big Ten–SEC matchup, Fox drew 8.2 million viewers for Michigan’s 17–10 win over Oklahoma in Ann Arbor. That’s up more than 31% compared to Fox’s Big Noon Saturday game average in 2025 but down from the 9.7 million viewers ABC got for last year’s Michigan-Oklahoma matchup in Norman.

The most-watched game of Week 1 action this year was Notre Dame’s 41-13 victory over Wisconsin, which drew 8.1 million viewers on NBC. LSU’s 51–10 blowout win over Clemson averaged just 5.8 million viewers despite being the most anticipated season-opening matchup as Lane Kiffin made his debut in Baton Rouge; kickoff was delayed by two hours due to weather. Last year’s LSU-Clemson matchup in South Carolina was one of three Week 1 games on ABC to draw more than 10 million viewers.

Kiffin will be in the spotlight again this weekend as he returns to Oxford for his first game at Ole Miss as head coach of LSU. ABC broadcasts the primetime matchup on Saturday featuring No. 7 LSU at No. 8 Ole Miss.

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