Running up the score
Supporters of preventively running up the score will often point to games such as the 2006 Insight Bowl where Minnesota blew a 38–7 lead in the third quarter, to eventually lose 44–41 to Texas Tech.
In 1999, during a 44–28 defeat of the Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals coach Bruce Coslet took running back Corey Dillon out of the game early in the fourth quarter.
[8] In 1995, with a 38–17 lead going into the fourth quarter over Georgia, 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.
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.
They came close again in 1989, routing a Southern Methodist (SMU) team fresh off the so-called death penalty in by a score of 95–21 in what could be termed as a "revenge game" after years of humiliation against its longtime Southwestern Conference rival; Houston itself was under a bowl and television ban that season because of its own past recruiting violations, meaning only those in attendance at the Astrodome witnessed the Cougars embarrass the Mustangs.
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.
Notre Dame defeated 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.
Rather than taking the more common extra point kick, Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes opted for a two-point conversion, which was unsuccessful.
[11] 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.
[14] However, after the arrival of head coach 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.
After a touchdown run by future Heisman Trophy runner-up Toby Gerhart to bring the score to 48–21, Harbaugh kept the Cardinal offense on the field to attempt a two-point conversion.
Another factor is that the parity that the salary cap has brought to the NFL in the 1990s has evened out competition somewhat, with less talent disparity between the best and worst teams compared to the past.
The greatest margin of victory at the professional level happened in the 1940 NFL Championship Game won by the Chicago Bears over the Washington Redskins 73–0.
Given recent comebacks such as The Miracle at the New Meadowlands and Super Bowl LI, and how quickly points can be accumulated (through interception returns, onside kicks and kick returns), it is understandable that coaches are cautious about becoming overconfident in their offenses and they normally prefer to run out the clock rather than risk an unlikely but certainly possible comeback late in the game, particularly for teams who have a strong offense but a weaker defense.
Having blown out the Force 42–0 in the first quarter alone thanks to three Force pick-sixes (including one achieved by a lateral), the Explosion continued to pile on, offering free tickets if the Explosion hit 100 points; when the players and head coach Shawn Liotta were told that the indoor record was 133 points (they were not informed of the overall pro record), they decided to attempt to break it, a feat they succeeded in achieving.
This moment was also overshadowed by the future success of the Eagles, the Cowboys' failures in the late 1980s, and Buddy Ryan's heavily publicized feud against his former coach Mike Ditka.
This is usually referred to as "garbage time", and while generally frowned upon for a lack of excitement it is considered to be the best way of ending a thoroughly uncompetitive game with minimal amounts of pride lost by the weaker side.
Batters do not specifically try to make outs (e.g. by swinging at pitches with no intent to hit them) as this would insult the opposing team, violate the spirit of the game, and hurt their own batting average.
The nature of cricket with teams alternating either one or two innings and how games are limited by time or overs means that running up the score does not exist as a meaningful term within the sport.
In ice hockey, complaints are quite rare, for the simple reason that unless there is a gross disparity in skill, teams generally do not score large numbers of goals at will against the opposition.
[a] Among many of the game's lopsided statistics, Johnson & Wales was unable to get a single shot while the victors recorded 81 (68 of which were on goal), won all but three of 56 face-offs and picked up all but nine of 81 ground balls.
The university's athletic department later issued a statement apologizing for "the unsportsmanlike nature of the final score", saying that the team's coaches regret the decisions they made which contributed to that outcome and players and fans "deserve better".
[31] Former Canadian international Clare Rustad called the American women's conduct "disgraceful" on The Sports Network, where Kate Beirness added her complaint that Morgan's holding up five fingers to celebrate her last goal was "just unacceptable".
[33] While former U.S. star Hope Solo defended the outcome—"When you respect your opponent you don't all of a sudden sit back and try not to score"—she admitted that some of the celebrations, particularly those that appeared planned, "seemed a little overboard."
She found, in contrast, the postgame embrace Carli Lloyd offered Thai goalkeeper Chor Charoenying after scoring the final goal in the 92nd minute to be more emblematic of the team's values.
[34] U.S. coach Jill Ellis defended her players by noting both the importance of goal differential in determining seeding for the tournament's elimination rounds and the need to build her team's confidence, as she was able to play some substitutes.
[39] There is no negative stigma associated with running up the score in Australian rules football, as the sport lacks any obvious means to kill off a match quickly and painlessly, and time-wasting is both unpopular with fans and discouraged by the laws of the game.
At times, large margins of victory occur in games where the winning school's reserves (second-string and junior varsity players) played a good share of the contest and simply were able to score at will against the weaker opposition.
(To avoid a recurrence, in 2011 the KSHSAA adopted a modified mercy rule for the playoffs, stating any 11-man postseason contest prior to the championship game would use a running clock in the second half once the margin reached 45 points.)
In this case however, running up the score is not in bad faith: because winners are awarded the actual dollar figure they earn during the show, Holzhauer had a legitimate financial incentive to maximize his winnings.
