59-0. 49-0. 48-0. Those were some halftime scores across college football on Saturday
Grambling State coach Mickey Joseph knew what was coming. He knew his team faced a tall order at No. 1 Ohio State.
Oh, he was right. And he wasn’t alone in what he was feeling Saturday.
There were plenty of one-sided scores across college football in Week 2. These were halftime — yes, halftime — scores from Saturday: Minnesota led Northwestern State 59-0, Florida State led East Texas A&M 49-0 and Texas Tech led Kent State 48-0.
As for Grambling State, well, it lost 70-0 to the defending national champion.
“It’s no secret,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said afterward. “This was not a matchup game.”
No, it wasn’t, and Joseph let the world know it was probably going to be that way. He went viral for a midweek interview in which he pointed out that Grambling’s band can hold its own with Ohio State’s band — but on the field, it looked like a mismatch.
“They’ve got a great band and we have a great band, and we’re going to compete as a band,” Joseph said. “I’m just joking right now. We understand what we’re getting into. We understand what’s going to happen. We understand it. It’s not balanced with the scholarships, it’s not balanced with what they have resources-wise and what we have resources-wise. We all know why we’re playing the game.”
That reason: money.
In the longstanding tradition of bigger programs offering guarantees to smaller programs for being willing to play as what typically is a huge underdog, Grambling State received $1 million from Ohio State for playing Saturday’s game.
Day tipped his cap to Joseph afterward.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for coach,” Day said. “And I thought their team played hard in this game. They were outmatched, talent-wise, for sure. I think he expressed that. But I give them a lot of respect for playing hard and playing for four quarters, all the way to the end.”
According to Stats LLC, Saturday was the first day since Sept. 10, 2016, that three major college football teams had leads of 48 or more points by halftime on the same day. Those games stayed lopsided the rest of the way: Minnesota won a weather-shortened game 66-0, Texas Tech prevailed 62-14 and Florida State — fueled by seven touchdown plays of 35 yards or more — went on to win 77-3.
Minnesota used 76 players. “Mission accomplished,” Gophers coach P.J. Fleck said.
“The score is what it is,” Northwestern State coach Blaine McCorkle said. “You play these games, and sometimes these things get sideways in a hurry, but we didn’t do anything to help ourselves.”
Other routs by halftime Saturday: No. 22 Tennessee led East Tennessee State 48-7 on its way to a 72-17 victory, Florida Atlantic jumped out to a 39-0 intermission lead over Florida A&M, and No. 6 Oregon led Oklahoma State 41-3 before going on to win 69-3 — and that was with the Ducks not even scoring in the fourth quarter.
“It’s fun to win,” Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. “Tight games are a little bit more exhilarating.”
Added Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, after the worst loss of his tenure at the school — which came days after he raised eyebrows by discussing the NIL investment disparity between the programs: “Sometimes, you’re going to play people that have the ability to run away from you.”
Texas Tech paid Kent State $1.5 million for their game on Saturday, which probably didn’t give the Golden Flashes a whole lot of consolation when they saw 48-0 on the scoreboard at halftime.
“Not the way we wanted to start. … Proud of the resolve of the team and responding the way they did in the second half,” Kent State interim coach Mark Carney said.
A similar situation found Kent State last season, too. On Sept. 14, 2024, the halftime deficit the Golden Flashes faced was considerably worse — Tennessee took a 65-0 lead into the locker room on its way to a 71-0 win.
Tennessee paid East Tennessee State $575,000 for Saturday’s game, while Minnesota gave Northwestern State $500,000 and Florida State paid East Texas A&M $450,000.
That said, big payouts don’t always guarantee one-sided scores — or even wins. No. 8 Clemson, favored by 31 points according to BetMGM Sportsbook, paid Troy $1.5 million to play Saturday; Troy jumped out to a 16-0 lead in the second quarter.
Notre Dame famously paid Northern Illinois $1.4 million for a game last season that the Fighting Irish lost, and Penn State paid FIU $1.6 million for Saturday’s game in Happy Valley.
FIU evidently showed up ready to earn that money: No. 2 Penn State went into the locker room with only a 10-0 lead, then pulled away after halftime for a 34-0 win — getting its last 14 points in the final 3:29.
“Learned a lot about these guys today,” FIU coach Willie Simmons said. “I think a foundation was laid today that could help us propel through the rest of the season.”
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By TIM REYNOLDS
AP Sports Writer
