Indiana's Memorial Stadium was rocking when Richard Lagow hit Ian Thomas for a go-ahead two-yard touchdown pass with four minutes, 56 seconds remaining in the third quarter against Ohio State.
You can bet ESPN execs were also smiling.
While the Buckeyes' touchdown onslaught over the next eight minutes had viewers turning the channel or going to bed, the network still won huge on Thursday night.
The first night of a five-day college football kickoff that features 65 games across ESPN's networks was highlighted by their MegaCast presentation of Ohio State's trip to Indiana, which had a 3.6 overnight rating and 201,000 viewers in the average minute. The game demolished the network's previous record for a Thursday night opener by 44 percent for the overnight and 109 percent for streaming.
The previous TV record was North Carolina at South Carolina in 2013 (2.4 overnight) and streaming record was Appalachian State at Tennessee in 2016.
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Nearly 1.4 million people streamed at last a portion of the game, with a total of 47,097,000 total minutes watched.
