It’s fitting, because of the implications it SHOULD have on the College Football Playoff, but to the likely surprise of few, the Buckeyes’ game at Michigan last weekend was the highest-rated college game in 12 years.
That’s according to this story (Michigan-Ohio State is CFB’s most-watched regular season game in 12 years) by awfulannouncing.com’s Joe Lucia. The game should basically have been a loser-leaves-town, in old-school territory wrestling terms, for the CFP. In short, the loser – in this case, Ohio State – should be down and out as far as the playoff is concerned.
And in reality, they are. The Buckeyes should really not have much hope at all to make the playoffs. And in my opinion, they don’t. I think the Georgia-Alabama winner should go, because the Southeastern Conference is the hardest conference in college football (there are five teams in the top 14), Michigan should go (they’re 12-0, won the game with Ohio State), and the Washington-Oregon winner should go.
That leaves one open spot for either:
- Georgia, if Alabama beats them in an ultra-close, razor-thin game;
- Texas, if they win the Big 12 title, especially in dominant fashion;
- Florida State, if they completely dominate Louisville, although I would be open to Ohio State taking that fourth and final spot, personally, if FSU barely beat Louisville or lost. I think the ACC is as weak as it’s ever been.
As far as the high rating for the Michigan-Ohio State game, it was the highest-rated college game since the Alabama-LSU regular season game since November 2011. According to Lucia, 19.07 million people watched the Wolverines beat Ohio State in the 11 a.m. kickoff game that Fox refers to as the Big Noon. That Alabama-LSU game averaged 20.01 million on CBS, Lucia notes.
By the way, in the same story, Lucia points out that CBS had its best audience of the 2023 season for the Iron Bowl, the annual matchup between Alabama and Auburn, which came down to the final seconds, an Alabama win that averaged 9.09 million viewers.
Lucia has all sorts of info packed in the story, all from Sports Media Watch. Pretty cool, and great job, Joe.
