Week 2 in college football started with some seriously one-sided scores.
These were halftime — yes, halftime — scores from Saturday afternoon: Minnesota led Northwestern State 59-0, Florida State led East Texas A&M 49-0 and Texas Tech led Kent State 48-0.
According to Stats LLC, that made Saturday 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 in the game. “Mission accomplished,” Minnesota coach PJ Fleck said.
“The score is what it is,” Northwestern State coach Blaine McCorkle said after his team got routed by Minnesota. “You play these games, and sometimes these things get sideways in a hurry, but we didn’t do anything to help ourselves.”
And there is the potential for more one-sided scores as the day goes along, with No. 1 Ohio State facing Football Championship Subdivision member Grambling State.
“They’ve got a great band and we have a great band, and we’re going to compete as a band,” Grambling State coach Mickey Joseph said in a quote that went viral during the week. “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 will receive $1 million from Ohio State for playing Saturday’s game. Texas Tech was paying 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.
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.
Minnesota was paying Northwestern State $500,000 and Florida State was paying East Texas A&M $450,000.
That said, big payouts don’t always guarantee one-sided scores — or even wins. Notre Dame famously paid Northern Illinois $1.4 million for a game last season that the Fighting Irish lost, and Penn State was paying FIU $1.6 million for their game on Saturday 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.
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