Texas and Alabama Games Put Tennessee Twice in the Season's Top 10 TV Ratings

Tennessee is not just winning games this season; the Volunteers are drawing a national audience. On3's weekly tracker of the most-watched college football games of 2026, built on Nielsen Big Data + Panel figures compiled through Week 7, has two Tennessee games sitting in the top 10.

The bigger draw came in Week 4, when Texas visited Neyland Stadium for a noon kickoff on ABC and 9.7 million viewers tuned in, good for No. 6 on the season list and the most-watched game of that week. It was a defensive battle the Longhorns won, with Colin Simmons setting a Texas program record with 5.5 sacks as his team held off a late Tennessee push.

The Alabama game landed at No. 10 with 8.10 million viewers, and this time the audience saw a Tennessee win. The Vols beat the Crimson Tide 26-10, a result that improved Tennessee to 6-1 overall and 3-1 in SEC play in front of one of the largest television audiences of the year.

For Tennessee, the takeaway goes beyond bragging rights. Programs that reliably pull audiences in the eight-to-ten-million range strengthen their hand in everything from kickoff windows to primetime scheduling, and right now the Vols are one of the sport's surest television bets.