College Football 2020: 5 bold predictions for opening week of season

4. BYU at Navy will draw a huge audience

Sports fans are eager for college football to get started. The biggest game of the week will be the BYU Cougars at Navy on Monday at 7 p.m. ET. This game will be on primetime on ESPN, which is huge for non-Power Five programs.

This game will be huge for multiple reasons. The first is due to the impact of power five conferences delaying their matchups to a later date in September. At the time of political turmoil, sports fans are begging for some form of sports to be played with the NBA, MLB, and NHL still profiting.

This will be the third-ever matchup between the Cougars and Midshipmen, both highly historic programs. The series is split with the last matchup being a BYU 31-10 away victory in 1989. BYU has been a football powerhouse since the years of Steve Young and Navy have been in the eyes of one of college football’s best rivalries against Army. This primetime spot will be the best chance for BYU to be featured nationally as they have a huge fanbase.

According to Sports Illustrated’s Casey Lundquist, the most viewed BYU game since 2012 was in the 2013 loss to the Washington Huskies in the 2013 Fight Hunger Bowl with 3.75 million viewers. The highest in the regular season in 2012 where Cougars lost to the No. 5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish with 3.7 million viewers.

Outside of Power Five opponents, the Cougars’ highest-viewed game was last season in the 2019 Hawaii Bowl against the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors with 2.43 million viewers. Finally, the most viewed regular season where the Cougars played a Group of Five opponents was the 2012 matchup at No. 24 Boise State with 2.1 million viewers.

This game between the Cougars and the Midshipmen has the potential to 2.5 million viewers with Power Five matchups still weeks away and the NFL still on the horizon.