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Scarlet Sunrise: Ohio State-Notre Dame most watched NBC regular season college football game since 1993

IMG_7408by: Andy Backstrom09/26/23andybackstrom

Good morning, Ohio State fans, and welcome to the Scarlet Sunrise. Football will always be our focus, but every day we’ll cover news, notes and analysis from across Buckeyes sports. Join us each morning to get caught up on everything you missed in the world of Buckeyes football, recruiting, basketball and more in Scarlet Sunrise.

Ohio State-Notre Dame most watched NBC regular season college football game since 1993

Well, there it is.

Ohio State-Notre Dame drew the largest NBC audience for a regular season college football game in 30 years.

The 17-14 Buckeyes win — which saw quarterback Kyle McCord orchestrate a 15-play, 65-yard, game-winning drive with less than a minute and half to go — averaged 10.5 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and NBC Sports Digital.

It went down as NBC’s most watched regular season game since the “Game of the Century” in 1993 when then-No. 2 Notre Dame beat then-No. 1 Florida State, 31-24, in a mid-November Notre Dame Stadium game.

Viewership of this past weekend’s thriller peaked at 14 million from 10:30-10:45 p.m. E.T., according to the NBC release — that was when Ohio State marched downfield for the game-clinching score, a one-yard run by running back Chip Trayanum with one second left.

Aside from the games played on the Labor Day holiday weekend, Ohio State-Notre Dame is the most watched primetime regular season college football game on any network since 2018, per NBC.

After the game, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day passionately declared that the Buckeyes’ triumph would go down as “one of the big wins in Ohio State history.”

More generally, it will also be remembered as a college football classic, and the NBC TV ratings back that up.

Here are the top metered markets for Ohio State-Notre Dame, per NBC’s release (data is from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics):

1.Columbus, OH29.9/65
2.Cleveland21.1/54
3.Cincinnati12.8/33
4.Indianapolis11.6/33
5.Detroit11.0/32
6.Chicago7.0/24
7.West Palm Beach6.6/19
8.Tampa6.2/19
T9.Nashville6.1/18
T9.Norfolk6.1/17
Stat Source: Data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics

Top five quotes from epic Ryan Day Notre Dame postgame press conference

Still thinking about that Ryan Day postgame press conference?

It was that memorable, and it dominated headlines over the weekend.

Lettermen Row looked back at the top five quotes from the fifth-year Buckeyes head coach, as he passionately called out Ohio State doubters, including Lou Holtz, an 86-year-old former Notre Dame head coach and college football analyst.

Check it out here.

Four things Buckeyes must accomplish during much-needed idle week

The off week comes at a great time for Ohio State.

The Buckeyes are coming off a pressure-cooked win at Notre Dame and now are No. 4 in the AP Poll. They already have their first Big Ten win — a 20-point, season-opening defeat of Indiana — and their first top-10 victory, this past weekend’s triumph in South Bend.

Ohio State now has a week to get healthy and reset.

Lettermen Row fleshed out the four things, in particular, Ohio State must do during its time off.

Find out what those things are here.

Counting down

Buckeyes vs. Maryland: 11 days
Buckeyes vs. Michigan: 60 days

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