\u201cIt\u2019s no secret,\u201d Ohio State coach Ryan Day said after the Grambling game Saturday. \u201cThis was not a matchup game.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
There was a lot of that going around.<\/p>\n
The other 60-point-or-more wins: No. 14 Florida State<\/a> beat East Texas A&M 77-3, No. 21 Alabama<\/a> beat Louisiana-Monroe 73-0, Nebraska<\/a> beat Akron 68-0, No. 6 Oregon<\/a> beat Oklahoma State 69-3, Minnesota<\/a> beat Northwestern State 66-0, UCF beat North Carolina A&T 68-7 and Washington beat UC Davis 70-10.<\/p>\n Joseph went viral for a midweek interview in which he pointed out that Grambling\u2019s band can hold its own with Ohio State\u2019s band \u2014 but on the field, he knew it looked like a mismatch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe understand what we\u2019re getting into. We understand what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Joseph said during the week. \u201cWe understand it. It\u2019s not balanced with the scholarships, it\u2019s not balanced with what they have resources-wise and what we have resources-wise. We all know why we\u2019re playing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n That reason: money.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s game.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great experience for my kids. It\u2019s a great memory for them,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cEverybody can\u2019t say they played the No. 1 team in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Day tipped his cap to Joseph afterward.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of respect for coach,\u201d Day said. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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. At halftime \u2014 yes, halftime \u2014 Minnesota led Northwestern State 59-0, Florida State led East Texas A&M 49-0 and Texas Tech led Kent State 48-0.<\/p>\n Those games stayed lopsided the rest of the way: Minnesota\u2019s win was cut short by weather, Florida State had seven TD plays of 35 yards or more and Texas Tech prevailed 62-14<\/a>.<\/p>\n Minnesota used 76 players. \u201cMission accomplished,\u201d Gophers coach P.J. Fleck said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe score is what it is,\u201d Northwestern State coach Blaine McCorkle said. \u201cYou play these games, and sometimes these things get sideways in a hurry, but we didn\u2019t do anything to help ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n There were other routs by halftime Saturday. Alabama, smarting from a season-opening loss to Florida State, led Louisiana-Monroe 42-0 at the break. No. 22 Tennessee led East Tennessee State 48-7 on its way to a 72-17 victory<\/a>. UCF led North Carolina A&T 40-0 after two quarters, Florida Atlantic took a 39-0 halftime lead and beat Florida A&M 56-14, and Oregon led Oklahoma State 41-3 at the break.<\/p>\n The Ducks didn\u2019t even score in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fun to win,\u201d Oregon coach Dan Lanning said. \u201cTight games are a little bit more exhilarating.\u201d<\/p>\n Added Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy, after the worst loss of his tenure at the school \u2014 which came days after he raised eyebrows by discussing the NIL investment disparity<\/a> between the programs: \u201cSometimes, you\u2019re going to play people that have the ability to run away from you.\u201d<\/p>\n Lots of money was paid out for some Saturday romps.<\/p>\n Alabama paid Louisiana-Monroe nearly $2 million. Texas Tech paid Kent State $1.5 million, which probably didn\u2019t give the Golden Flashes a whole lot of consolation when they saw 48-0 on the scoreboard at halftime.<\/p>\n \u201cNot the way we wanted to start. … Proud of the resolve of the team and responding the way they did in the second half,\u201d Kent State interim coach Mark Carney said.<\/p>\n A similar situation found Kent State last season, too. On Sept. 14, 2024, the halftime deficit the Golden Flashes faced was worse \u2014 Tennessee took a 65-0 lead at the break and won 71-0.<\/p>\n Nebraska paid Akron $1.45 million. Tennessee paid East Tennessee State $575,000, Minnesota gave Northwestern State $500,000, UCF paid North Carolina A&T $475,000 and Florida State paid East Texas A&M $450,000. The payout Washington gave for Saturday wasn\u2019t disclosed, but UC Davis coach Tim Plough said this past week that it was \u201ca huge financial sum from this game.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cObviously, it does a lot for your athletic department. … This is an incredible opportunity for us,\u201d ETSU coach Will Healy said.<\/p>\n Big payouts don\u2019t always bring big wins. No. 8 Clemson, favored by 31 points according to BetMGM Sportsbook, paid Troy $1.5 million; Troy jumped out to a 16-0 lead in the second quarter, before Clemson settled in and won 27-16<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a weird day,\u201d Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said postgame, after the teams had to wait through a 92-minute first-half lightning delay.<\/p>\n No. 2 Penn State paid FIU $1.6 million for their game in Happy Valley. FIU showed up ready to earn that money: Penn State led only 10-0 at the half and got a 34-0 win<\/a> \u2014 getting its last 14 points in the final 3:29.<\/p>\n \u201cLearned a lot about these guys today,\u201d FIU coach Willie Simmons said. \u201cI think a foundation was laid today that could help us propel through the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a>. AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grambling State coach Mickey Joseph knew what was coming when his team faced No. 1 Ohio State. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[2724,1607,2662,27961,399,9580,86827,81193,6429,13423,398,396,397,30874,99,1022,86830,86828,86829],"class_list":["post-139022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-associated-press","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-dan-lanning","tag-football","tag-mark-carney","tag-mickey-joseph","tag-mike-gundy","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-golden-gophers","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-ryan-day","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-tim-plough","tag-will-healy","tag-willie-simmons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n