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College Football Romps

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Ohio State running back Carlos Hyde (center) scores one of the team's 11 touchdowns against Florida A&M. (Jay LaPrete/AP)
Ohio State running back Carlos Hyde (center) scores one of the team's 11 touchdowns against Florida A&M. (Jay LaPrete/AP)

On Saturday, Louisville's football team, their record unsullied at 3-0, took the field against Florida International University. FIU's record going into the game was also lopsided. They were 0-3.

It was safe assumption that Louisville would win, and they did, and the score was 72-0.

Because the rules of football require the team that scores to kick the ball to the other team directly thereafter, it is certain that FIU did get to handle the ball, although there was no evidence of that on the scoreboard.

One of the few things that might have made the FIU players feel better was the score of the game Florida A&M played against Ohio State on the same day. The No. 4 team in the nation prevailed, 76-0.

Those two games stand out because the final score of each suggests that one team was playing basketball and the other team was playing hooky.

In other more competitive games, the University of Miami slipped by Savannah State, 77-7. Not to be outdone by any more than a touchdown in terms of the point spread, Baylor beat the University of Louisiana at Monroe, 70-7. On Monday, when the coaches at Miami and Baylor had seen that both Louisville and Ohio State had blanked their opponents, do you suppose those coaches gave their defenses a hard time for giving up those lonely touchdowns?

Some of you are nodding now and saying to yourselves, sure, those were spectacularly lopsided games, but the losers got paid plenty to show up. The athletic department at Florida International will be able to afford new uniforms now, or a new logo, or therapy for everybody who was on the field as the score climbed past 40-plus to nothing toward 60-plus to nothing, stopping at 72-0 only because time ran out or the Louisville quarterback was tired.

Some of the rest of you, also probably nodding, are thinking I've just picked out the most ridiculously skewed games to highlight. That's so. The 56-0 score by which Washington beat Idaho State and Mississippi State's 62-7 romp over Troy are not as spectacularly silly.

But I'm not exaggerating to make a point. I'm reporting the scores of actual college football games scheduled by actual people who are probably kind to their mothers and solicitous of the health of their children, though some of those match-ups might be easier to understand if they weren't.

This program aired on September 25, 2013.

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Bill Littlefield Host, Only A Game
Bill Littlefield was the host of Only A Game from 1993 until 2018.

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