Nielsen reveals most-watched college football teams to start 2026 season

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We’re about a month and a half into the 2026 college football season, and it’s already been awesome.

Some crazy upsets have happened across the country, while top teams like Texas, Georgia, and Ohio State have established themselves as legitimate College Football Playoff contenders.

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There have also been some great ratings for select games and teams, and with that in mind, Nielsen has unveiled the 10 most-watched teams through Week 5.

The Texas Longhorns lead with 9.038 million, followed by the LSU Tigers with 7.623 million. These two shouldn’t surprise anyone since the Longhorns are the best team in college football right now, and the Tigers have Lane Kiffin as their head coach, which makes for great storylines.

The Wisconsin Badgers are third on the list with 7.421 million views, and it certainly helps that the program is off to a 4-1 start. The Ohio State Buckeyes and Ole Miss Rebels round out the top five with 6.720 million and 6.235 million views, respectively.

What does the rest of the list look like?

The Michigan Wolverines, Kentucky Wildcats, Florida Gators, Tennessee Volunteers, and Alabama Crimson Tide round out the top 10. Most of these are blue-blood programs that are off to fantastic starts this season.

An exception is Kentucky, which is doing better than expected by posting a 4-1 record in Will Stein’s first season as head coach. The program has already been in some big games this year and will play another one this Saturday against LSU.

It’ll be fascinating to see how much this list changes by the time we get to the end of the season.

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