ESPN led all Week 1 college football telecasts with a 6.6 overnight rating for Ohio State's 42-24 win over Virginia Tech last night as the Buckeyes try to defend their national championship. That figure marks ABC/ESPN's third-best Week 1 overnight on record, behind only Miami-Florida State from '05 (7.2 on ABC) and Boise State-Virginia Tech from '10 (6.7 on ESPN). Columbus led all markets with a 43.4 local rating for the game, followed by fellow Ohio markets Cleveland-Akron (28.7) and Dayton (28.4). Birmingham (19.8) and Richmond (16.3) rounded out the top five. Ohio State-Virginia Tech also was up big from a 2.7 overnight for Miami-Louisville in the same window last year. ABC saw a gain for its first "Saturday Night Football" telecast of the season. Alabama-Wisconsin drew a 4.3 overnight, up from a 4.1 for Florida State-Oklahoma State last year but down from a 4.9 for Georgia-Clemson in '13. Birmingham led all markets for Alabama-Wisconsin with a 46.7 local rating, while Milwaukee ranked second with a 17.6. ABC also earned a 2.0 overnight for BYU's last-second win over Nebraska in the 3:30pm ET window on Saturday, down from a 4.1 for West Virginia-Alabama last year and down from a 2.2 for a regionalized window in '13. ESPN on Friday night saw big gains for its doubleheader. Baylor-SMU and Washington-Boise State were up 67% and 114%, respectively, from BYU-UConn and UNLV-Arizona last year. Meanwhile, CBS on Saturday aired an SEC game in Week 1 for the first time since at least '03. Auburn-Louisville drew a 2.6 overnight, leading all afternoon CFB windows on Saturday, and up 117% from U.S. Open coverage the net had in the same window in '14. Over on NBC, Texas-Notre Dame on Saturday night also drew a 2.6 overnight, up from the net's 1.4 for Rice-Notre Dame afternoon matchup in Week 1 last year. Fox on Saturday afternoon drew a 1.1 overnight for Virginia-UCLA, up from a 0.9 for Fresno State-USC in primetime last year.
PANTS PARTY: FS1 for Michigan-Utah on Thursday drew its best college football audience yet. Jim Harbaugh's debut as Michigan coach saw the net average 2.87 million viewers, surpassing the previous mark set by Oregon State-Oregon in November '13 (2.18 million viewers). Michigan-Utah also was up 518% from the comparable Rutgers-Washington State game last year. The matchup drew 73,000 unique streams on Fox Sports Go, marking the platform's best CFB audience yet. Meanwhile, ESPN on Thursday drew 3.6 million viewers for the season-opening South Carolina-North Carolina game, up 49% from 2.42 million viewers for Boise State-Ole Miss last year. ESPN also drew 2.62 million viewers for TCU-Minnesota in the late Thursday window (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
HOST WITH THE MOST: SI.com's Richard Deitsch wrote ESPN's Rece Davis "smoothly handled his debut" as host of "College GameDay." Davis "deferred to his colleagues ... and appeared to enjoy himself on a show that needs its ringmaster to stay upbeat for three hours." The show also "paid tribute" to former host Chris Fowler, and what "could have been [an] awkward segment ... came off as touching and thoughtful as Fowler thanked a ton of people for making the show work" (SI.com, 9/6). In Tampa, Tom Jones wrote "GameDay" will "definitely lose some of its oomph without Fowler." Jones: "Davis is solid, but he is no Fowler. Who is?" But Saturday's show was "exactly what we've come to expect." It "previewed the day's games in an informative and entertaining manner, and produced a number of good features" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 9/7). In Birmingham, John Talty went behind the scenes during Davis' debut as host and writes with Davis' wife and kids "watching off to the side," he weaved "through the show with ease." Talty: "It's everything viewers have come to expect about College GameDay: Informative, fun and, more often than not, emotional" (AL.com, 9/8). ESPN drew a 1.4 overnight for the "GameDay" opener, up from a 1.1 for the season opener last year (Karp).
