User:AnthroposPolytropos/sandbox

Florida
With Alltel Stadium (now Everbank Field) still under construction in 1995, Florida visited Georgia in Athens, Georgia at Sanford Stadium for the first time in 63 years. With a 38-17 lead going into the fourth quarter over the beleaguered Bulldogs, Florida head coach Steve Spurrier decided to run up the score to "hang half a hundred" on the scoreboard to humiliate their opponents on their home field, something that had never been done before. His team succeeded with a final score of 52-17. That record still stands today as the most points ever scored by an opposing team at Sanford Stadium.

Georgia Tech
On October 7, 1916, Georgia Tech defeated the Cumberland College Bulldogs 222–0. Cumberland had previously disbanded their football team, but quickly formed a scrub team when faced with fines if they refused to play. Georgia Tech scored 63 points in the first quarter and 63 points in the second quarter, then 54 points in the third quarter and 42 points in the fourth. Neither team gained a first down during the game, because Georgia Tech's defense prevented Cumberland from advancing for a first down and Georgia Tech scored on every series of downs. Georgia Tech won under the coaching of John Heisman, who wanted revenge after an embarrassing 22–0 loss earlier that year to a Cumberland baseball team that he suspected of having used professional players posing as students.

Houston
On November 23, 1968, the University of Houston defeated the University of Tulsa 100-6. Though they had a 24-0 advantage at half, the Cougars scored 11 touchdowns in the second half for an astounding 94-point blowout. They came close again in 1989, routing a Southern Methodist team fresh off the so-called death penalty by a score of 95-21.

Houston coach John Jenkins was known for leaving his starters in to pad their stats during blowout games but against SMU he did not. In 1990, University of Houston defeated Eastern Washington University 84-21 to help QB David Klingler set an NCAA record 54 touchdown passes in 11 games that season. The next year, 1991, they would blow out Louisiana Tech University 73-3 in the opening game of the season.

Miami
On November 30, 1985, the University of Miami Hurricanes were playing the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame in Gerry Faust's final game as Notre Dame head coach. The Hurricanes, led by Jimmy Johnson, were trying to impress pollsters since they were ranked fourth in the polls prior to the game. The Hurricanes called a fake punt on fourth-and-11 in the fourth quarter with a 44-7 lead, scored a touchdown off a blocked punt with less than six minutes left, and went on to win 58-7. Miami was rewarded in the AP poll as it passed idle Iowa to reach No. 3 and set up a possible national championship with a victory over Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl. Receiving criticism after the game, Johnson replied, "Nobody apologized to me when Oklahoma did it," a reference to a 1980 rout by the score of 63-14 when Johnson was head coach at Oklahoma State University. Miami would go on to lose to Tennessee, 35-7, in the 1986 Sugar Bowl.

Notre Dame
Notre Dame crushed Georgia Tech 69-14 in 1977. The Fighting Irish led 21-7 at halftime but scored 21 points in the third quarter and 27 in the fourth. Only a missed extra point after ND's eighth touchdown kept the Irish from scoring 70 points for the first time since 1932 and only the second time in Notre Dame Stadium history. After ND took a 62-7 lead, Georgia Tech scored its only second half points on a kickoff return for a touchdown by Eddie Lee Ivery; the Irish would not surrender another kickoff return for a touchdown until 21 years later, against Kevin Faulk and LSU in 1998. The blowout was payback for a 23-14 upset victory by Georgia Tech over Notre Dame in 1976, after which Yellow Jacket players were quoted as deriding the Fighting Irish as fat and slow. There also was bad blood between ND coach Dan Devine and GT coach Pepper Rodgers, dating back to the days when they coached arch-rivals Missouri and Kansas, respectively; Devine's Tigers had mauled Rodgers's Jayhawks 69-21 in the 1969 season finale. The 1977 humiliation of Georgia Tech did not impact Notre Dame's poll standing; they remained No. 5 in the AP poll—but the Fighting Irish won the rest of their games to finish 11-1 and win the 1977 national championship.

Notre Dame annihilated Boston College 54–7 in a 1992 game where Fighting Irish coach Lou Holtz called a fake punt on the first series of the third quarter, with his team already possessing an enormous (albeit not technically insurmountable) 37-0 lead. A year later, Boston College stunned then-No. 1 Notre Dame 41-39 in the final regular season game of the year, knocking the Fighting Irish to No. 4 in the AP poll and paving the way for Florida State to be voted national champions.

While playing at longtime rival Stanford in 2003, Notre Dame head coach Tyrone Willingham allowed his punter to call a fake punt in response to a punt block read while the Fighting Irish led 57-7 late in the fourth quarter.

Notre Dame has not since had a team able to run up the score on any opponent, only winning 4 post season games in the last 20 years.

Ohio State
In 1968, the Ohio State Buckeyes, en route to a national championship, defeated their bitter rival, the Michigan Wolverines, 50-14. Late in the game, Ohio State held a commanding 44-14 advantage and scored one final touchdown. Rather than taking the more common extra point kick, Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes opted for a two-point conversion, which was unsuccessful. When asked later why he went for two points, Hayes said, "Because I couldn't go for three!", though players have commented that there was some sort of confusion on the extra point kick, and Hayes was just covering for his players.

Oklahoma
On November 8, 2003, the Oklahoma Sooners showed little mercy against Texas A&M Aggies, cruising to a 49-0 halftime lead. Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops denied running up the score (which did little to silence criticism) as his second string players came out in the 3rd quarter and put up 28 more points to finish with a final score of 77-0 and 639 yards of total offense. This was the worst loss in Texas A&M football history. In Stoops' defense, the coaches agreed to a running clock during most of the second half and the entire 4th quarter. Also, at one point in the fourth quarter, Oklahoma had first and goal inside the A&M five-yard-line with a chance to score over 80 points, but Stoops called four consecutive runs up the middle to prevent another score.

Oklahoma State
In their 2012 season opener, the Oklahoma State Cowboys defeated Savannah State Tigers 84–0. In defense of the lop-sided result, interim defense coordinator Glenn Spencer claimed the shut-out was a tribute to the ill Bill Young&mdash;team's full-time defensive coordinator&mdash;who recently underwent an undisclosed medical procedure. It ended up as the most lopsided victory for OSU since a 117-0 rout of Southwestern Oklahoma in 1916 and Savannah State's worst loss since a 98-0 defeat against Bethune-Cookman in 1953, a season when the Tigers were outscored 444-6.

Penn State
Although longtime Penn State head coach Joe Paterno was regarded by some as one who did everything he could to avoid running up the score, such as in a 63-10 win over Illinois in 2005 where Penn State held a 56-3 halftime lead, Pitt partisan journalist Beano Cook claimed he made an exception in 1985 against hated rival Pitt. The game was well in hand with the score 31-0 when the assistants called the first string team off the field. Paterno supposedly immediately ordered them back in, saying, "I want to bury Pitt." Paterno's 1991 Penn State team is often accused of running it up on Cincinnati 81-0, but this was refuted by the Bearcat's coach Tim Murphy, who said "I think Joe's a class guy and I don't believe he'd do that in a hundred years," Murphy said. "We made too many mistakes even for a first game of the season and that's my fault. I'm embarrassed, not Joe Paterno."

Stanford
In the early 2000s, Stanford was considered the bottom-dweller of the Pac-10, whereas state rival USC was named the "Team of the Decade" by both CBSSports.com and Football.com, as well as the "Program of the Decade" by SI.com. However, after the arrival of Jim Harbaugh to The Farm in 2007 and Stanford's record-breaking upset of the Trojans that fall, the Stanford-USC rivalry began to pick up in intensity and importance. During their 2009 meeting, Stanford was crushing USC in the Coliseum, leading 48-21 midway through the fourth quarter. After a touchdown run by future Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart, Harbaugh kept the Cardinal offense on the field to attempt a two-point conversion. When asked what was going on, Harbaugh said "I want to put fifty on these motherfuckers." The two-point conversion was unsuccessful, but Stanford would later score in the final minutes of the game, and ultimately won the game 55-21 after scoring 27 points in the forth quarter. It was the worst home loss in USC history, and the worst loss in the Stanford-USC rivalry.

After the game, USC head coach Pete Carroll approached Harbaugh and, visibly angry, asked "What's your deal? You alright?" To which Harbaugh retorted "I'm fine. What's your deal?" This moment (in addition to the aforementioned Stanford upset of #2 USC in 2007) is seen by many as the turning point of the Stanford Cardinal football program, which since 2010 has been one of the winningest programs in college football.

Texas A&M
In the same 2003 season that Oklahoma defeated Texas A&M 77-0 (see above), A&M themselves ran up the score in a 73-10 home romp against Baylor University. A&M naturally entered the rematch a year later as huge favorites, and the game was to be played the week prior to the major rematch game against Oklahoma. Perhaps too busy awaiting their moment of revenge against the Sooners the week to come, Texas A&M succumbed to the Baylor team they had humiliated the year before. As the Bears only managed three wins that entire 2004 season, the revenge-minded Baylor team's 35-34 overtime victory was arguably the biggest upset of the year. (Texas A&M did end up losing to Oklahoma again the following week, as well, although this time only by a score of 42-35.)

Another example of this was in 1992, when Notre Dame routed Boston College 54-7 in a game where Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz called a fake punt play late in the game, with his team possessing an enormous lead. BC, under head coach Tom Coughlin, spent the entire year looking forward to playing Notre Dame again, and ended up beating them 41-38, eventually costing Notre Dame a chance at a national championship.

Washington and Oregon
The largest margin of victory turnaround in Division I-A football in successive years belongs to the University of Washington and the University of Oregon and showcased two prime examples of running up the score. In 1973, Oregon ran up the score at home, burying Washington 58–0. A year later, Washington responded with a 66-0 drubbing of Oregon back home in Seattle. In that game, Washington's starting quarterback Chris Rowland played longer than necessary and suffered a season-ending knee injury. Rowland recalled that Washington head coach Jim Owens "wanted me in and said, 'We're going to beat these guys more than they beat us.' He [Owens] apologized to me because it was a personal thing for him."