Texas’ miraculous comeback win over No. 1 Ohio State drew more viewers to ESPN than any regular-season college football game in a decade.
That’s according to the network’s public relations department, which released its numbers for the 24-23 Longhorns victory on Tuesday. Fourteen million viewers tuned in to ESPN/ABC on Saturday to see Arch Manning lead the Horns’ 20-point comeback in the fourth quarter.
Peaking at 16.8 million viewers, it was ESPN’s top-rated regular-season game in 10 years, going back to a 2016 rivalry matchup between Ohio State and Michigan. It’s the most-viewed regular-season primetime game since 2012 (Notre Dame-USC), and the most-watched Week 2 game for any network on record. It more than doubled rival Oklahoma’s loss to Michigan, which averaged 8.221 million viewers on Fox’s Big Noon Saturday.