\u201cIt\u2019s no secret,\u201d Ohio State coach Ryan Day said afterward. \u201cThis was not a matchup game.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, it wasn\u2019t, 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\u2019s band can hold its own with Ohio State\u2019s band \u2014 but on the field, it looked like a mismatch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got a great band and we have a great band, and we\u2019re going to compete as a band,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cI\u2019m just joking right now. We understand what we\u2019re getting into. We understand what\u2019s going to happen. We 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
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/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 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. Those games stayed lopsided the rest of the way: Minnesota won a weather-shortened game 66-0<\/a>, Texas Tech prevailed 62-14<\/a> and Florida State \u2014 fueled by seven touchdown plays of 35 yards or more \u2014 went on to win 77-3<\/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 Other routs by halftime Saturday: No. 22 Tennessee led East Tennessee State 48-7 on its way to a 72-17 victory,<\/a> 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<\/a> \u2014 and that was with the Ducks not even scoring 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 Texas Tech paid Kent State $1.5 million for their game on Saturday, 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 considerably worse \u2014 Tennessee took a 65-0 lead into the locker room on its way to a 71-0 win.<\/p>\n Tennessee paid East Tennessee State $575,000 for Saturday\u2019s game, while Minnesota gave Northwestern State $500,000 and Florida State paid East Texas A&M $450,000.<\/p>\n That said, big payouts don\u2019t always guarantee one-sided scores. 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, before Clemson settled in and won 27-16<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s game in Happy Valley.<\/p>\n 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<\/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. He knew his team faced a tall order at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":206419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1578,1428,1369,113453,12806,1318,18809,113535,82157,3663,9444,1317,1315,1316,9445,105118,62,358,8799,67,132,68,113536],"class_list":{"0":"post-206418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-associated-press","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-college-sports","11":"tag-dan-lanning","12":"tag-florida-state-seminoles","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-mark-carney","15":"tag-mickey-joseph","16":"tag-mike-gundy","17":"tag-minnesota","18":"tag-minnesota-golden-gophers","19":"tag-ncaa","20":"tag-ncaa-football","21":"tag-ncaafootball","22":"tag-oregon-ducks","23":"tag-ryan-day","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-texas","26":"tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-willie-simmons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115160438831442341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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