College Football’s Loaded Saturday Sets Up Huge Day for ABC, ESPN

Multiview will be a necessity for college football fans on Saturday.

The highly anticipated Week 10 slate marks the first time in nine years that seven matchups on the same day all feature both teams ranked in the top 25 of the College Football Playoff rankings. The biggest winners among the TV networks are the Disney-owned ABC and ESPN, which together will broadcast five of those games. 

Here’s the lineup of Saturday’s marquee games:

• Noon: No. 9 BYU at No. 3 Utah (ABC)
• Noon: No. 7 Texas–No. 18 Missouri (ESPN)
• Noon: No. 8 UCLA–Minnesota (Fox)
• 3:30: No. 5 Alabama–No. 14 LSU (ABC)
• 3:30: No. 23 Oregon–No. 12 Ohio State (CBS)
• 6:15: No. 6 Kentucky–No. 13 Tennessee (ESPN)
• 7:30: No. 1 Miami–No. 11 Notre Dame (NBC)
• 7:30: No. 2 Georgia–No. 10 Ole Miss (ABC)

“It just sort of all came together perfectly,” ESPN senior director of programming and acquisitions Kurt Dargis tells Front Office Sports.

ESPN knew its platforms would likely have multiple strong Week 10 matchups from the time the SEC’s schedule came out in December. It then acquired the top pick for this week’s Big 12 matchups in its TV draft with Fox back in the spring—but wasn’t exactly counting on BYU-Utah having the relevance it does. “For it to turn out to be a top-10 matchup, I think that might have been a little bit of a stretch to think that we were going to get that,” Dargis says.

BYU-Utah was slotted into the noon ET window (which means a 10 a.m. local kickoff) last week, but wasn’t put on ABC until after both teams won in Week 9. Had both or even either lost last weekend, Dargis says, then Texas-Missouri very likely could have gotten the prime network slot.

Meanwhile, Fox’s Big Noon Saturday window will feature undefeated UCLA looking to keep its position atop the Big Ten playing at Minnesota.

Head-to-Head Battles

In the spring, CBS used its first pick in its Big Ten TV draft on Oregon–Ohio State, which initially looked like it could be the matchup of the season as the Buckeyes were the No. 1–ranked team in the preseason AP Top 25 poll and the Ducks were No. 2. But Oregon (5–3) is all but out of the CFP picture and Ohio State (6–2) is on the bubble.

With the dampened hype around that Big Ten matchup, even more eyes should be on Alabama-LSU at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC, which will lead into the network’s primetime clash with NBC, featuring Georgia–Ole Miss going head-to-head with Miami–Notre Dame.

“We liked the idea of hopefully getting—even starting back with BYU-Utah in the moon window—just building, building, building throughout the day,” Dargis says. “Alabama-LSU in the middle is as good a matchup of brands and high rankings that you could get—hopefully get a really, really big number there—and just let that flow right into the Georgia–Ole Miss game in primetime.”

NBC’s pregame College Countdown show that typically airs at 7 p.m. ET ahead of Notre Dame and other major 7:30 kickoffs on the network will start 30 minutes early at 6:30 p.m. on Peacock with expanded coverage ahead of the Fighting Irish’s primetime telecast. ESPN’s College GameDay pregame show is airing from South Bend, Ind., on Saturday, after already traveling to five SEC locations and both BYU and Utah this season. 

The big day of matchups arrives as college football viewership this season is down 11% across all Nielsen-rated networks.