Ohio State vs. Minnesota most-watched Week 1 FOX college football game ever

That’s a lot of eyeballs on the game last night! Was it more because of Buckeye Nation, or those rooting against Ohio State?

We often hear that Ohio State turns on television sets and streaming devices, and it appears Thursday night was no different. In fact, according to FOX Sports PR, the Buckeyes’ game against the Minnesota Golden Gophers Thursday night was the most-watched Week 1 college football game on FOX ever.

Now, we haven’t gone back to find out what the population consists of, but trust us when we say, that’s impressive. In addition, the 6,295,000 viewers mark the most for any Thursday night college game ever — on any network. The game was also the most-watched telecast of the day on any network.

It also ranked as the 3rd most-streamed regular-season college football game in FOX Sports history. And, at one point — from 9:15-9:30 p.m. EDT — things peaked with around 7,044,000 eyeballs on the contest.

We’re sure a lot of Buckeye Nation had to do with those ratings, but we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t also understand that Minnesota keeping things close had OSU haters tuning in rooting for an OSU loss.

Either way, Ohio State showed a lot of people that it has the ability to come back and win one with a young team, on the road, in a hostile environment.

[vertical-gallery id=58243]

Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion.