Week 2 in college football starts with some one-sided scores

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,” 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.”

A couple other routs by halftime Saturday: No. 22 Tennessee led East Tennessee State 48-7 and No. 6 Oregon was rolling past Oklahoma State 41-3.

It seemed clear looking at the schedule this week that there was the potential for one-sided scores. Case in point: No. 1 Ohio State facing Football Championship Subdivision member Grambling State.

Among those who were bracing for that game to be one-sided: Mickey Joseph, the Grambling State coach. So, he probably wasn’t too surprised when Ohio State took a 35-0 lead at the half.

“They’ve got a great band and we have a great band, and we’re going to compete as a band,” 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 received $1 million from Ohio State for playing Saturday’s game. 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 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 — 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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