Pitt football suffered their worst loss in the nine seasons under head coach Pat Narduzzi last weekend, in a 58-7 defeat to rival No. 14 Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind.
Since Notre Dame hosted the game, the entire country witnessed their absolute domination of Pitt on NBC, as the network holds the television rights to their home games. Pitt redshirt sophomore quarterback Christian Veilleux threw four interceptions and Notre Dame scored twice on special teams, on a punt return and off a fumble from redshirt senior defensive back M.J. Devonshire on a punt return.
The 51-point loss is not only the biggest loss under Narduzzi, but serves as the most lopsided defeat for the Panthers since a 72-0 loss to the No. 7 Ohio State Buckeyes on the road in 1996.
The Pitt-Notre Dame game, drew a 1.1 rating and 1.89 million viewers, according to sportsmediawatch.com. The rating is the second highest for a Pitt football game in 2023, as the Backyard Brawl against West Virginia on the road on Sept. 16 which had 2.1 million viewers and a 1.3 rating on ABC at 7:30 p.m.
In terms of Week 9 College Football, the game finished as the No. 11 most watched of the weekend. The most watched game saw No. 1 Georgia defeat rival Florida 43-20 on the road, which drew a 3.0 rating and 5.95 million viewers on CBS at 3:30 p.m.
The Pitt-Notre Dame game was also the No. 4 highest watched game at the 3:30 p.m. time slot. No. 8 Oregon’s domination of No. 13 Utah on the road on FOX drew a 1.6 rating and 2.81 million viewers to come in second, while No. 7 Texas easily defeating BYU 35-6 at home on ABC drew a 1.3 rating and 2.38 million viewers to come in third.
This is also the fourth game that Pitt has played on National Television this season. They also played twice on the CW Network, which saw them lose to rival Cincinnati in Week 2 and upset then ranked No. 14 Louisville in Week 7. Both games drew a 0.32 rating, but the River City Rivalry drew 617 thousand viewers and the Louisville game drew 569 thousand viewers.Â
Pitt will play in their fifth nationally televised game this Saturday at home against undefeated No. 4 Florida State at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN. They come into that game as 21-point underdogs, where they will look to win just their third game of the season.
I had to turn the channel in the 3rd quarter. It was too brutal to watch – The ratings for Gomer Pyle reruns that day toppled the Pitt game. Sad, but True!
Must have been a Lou Ann Poovie episode ! lol
Less than 2 million had to witness this live. So not that many in a nation of 330 million + and unknown tens of millions of illegals.