UCF win over Cincinnati delivers top TV ratings
UCF took center stage this weekend when it hosted ESPN’s College GameDay and ABC’s Saturday night football.
The move appears to have paid off for ESPN/ ABC, with the network reporting Sunday it drew big television ratings for both shows.
According to ESPN, its College GameDay show from Memory Mall on campus drew a 1.4 overnight rating, which was up 8 percent from last year’s show at this time. In Orlando, the show earned a 3.9 overnight rating, tying the market’s best rating for the pre-game show since 2010.
ABC’s broadcast of the No. 11 UCF versus No. 24 Cincinnati game from Spectrum Stadium was the highest-rated primetime college football game of the week, delivering a 2.3 overnight television rating.
According to tvbythe numbers.zap2it.com, the game delivered more than 3 million viewers.
For example, the Kansas-Oklahoma game on Fox Sports at the same time drew just 2.6 million viewers.
As expected, the top two markets for the Knights’ 38-13 win were Orlando and Cincinnati, respectively. In Orlando, the game drew the market’s best numbers for an ESPN/ABC game this season. In Cincinnati, the numbers surpassed the ratings for the Ohio State game against Maryland earlier in the day.
Many of the UCF players said they were able to feed off the energy of the announced crowd of 47,795 in attendance at Spectrum Stadium.
“Knight Nation was unreal,” UCF defensive lineman Joey Connors said. “That was the loudest … even away games, when we were at Michigan or South Carolina … that was the loudest stadium I’ve ever been in.
“That was why they [Cincinnati] get six or seven false starts [penalties] and that’s all credit to them. They couldn’t hear. I’m right there next to the center and they’re yelling at each other. They don’t know what’s going on. I give so much credit to them.”
UCF running back Adrian Killins added, “Starting off the game, they got a lot of penalties for us and I’m pretty sure the defense loved that … so shout-out to Knight Nation. We love you and we’re going to keep this ball rolling.”
Quarterback McKenzie Milton said the crowd gave the Knights an edge.
“There’s a lot of energy in that stadium tonight, and I’m very thankful for Knight Nation, a sold-out crowd. It was electric there,” he said.
For weeks, people have been asking what’s wrong with UCF’s defense — especially after the Knights gave up nearly 700 yards against Temple a few weeks ago.
The defensive players have heard the criticism and responded with one of the best performances of the season, holding Cincinnati to just 13 points and fewer than 400 yards.
“They say we don’t really read that kind of stuff, but we see it out there and we use that as motivation,” said Connors, who recorded a sack, blocked a field goal and recovered a fumble Saturday night. “We came out here and we did what we had to do.”
UCF senior defensive lineman Titus Davis, who had a career-high three sacks against the Bearcats, added, “Last week, we gave up a lot of yards and I feel our fire was hot from the get-go this week. Just having that chip on our shoulder this whole week, in the meeting rooms, we just talked it out and said this is all we got, we’re going to give it all we got and we’re going to handle business and we did that tonight.”