The No. 7 Miami Hurricanes beat Florida A&M 77-7 on Thursday night in a home-opener so lopsided that both coaching staffs agreed before the fourth quarter to shorten the remaining play. The result was never in question. The question is whether the arrangement that put these two programs on the same field should continue to exist.
The case for it is straightforward: Florida A&M came to Miami Gardens for a check. Programs at that level depend on guarantee-game payouts, which can fund smaller athletic departments through the rest of the school year. That is a real argument, and it deserves its due.
The read-through from the tape, though, is brutal. Miami went up 14-0 before five minutes had elapsed. The Hurricanes scored a touchdown on all seven first-half possessions. FAMU managed two first downs in the entire first half. Heisman-hopeful quarterback Darian Mensah threw for three touchdowns and completed all but one of his passes. The backup went 8 for 8 with three more touchdowns. The third-stringer threw one incompletion. Miami's ground game topped 400 yards. Mario Cristobal was still sending his offense on 4th-and-7 from the FAMU 8 with two minutes remaining in the period; the Rattlers held, one of the few wins they had on the night, achieved against a group of third-stringers and walk-ons.
The counterargument
The revenue logic is legitimate, and historically these matchups occasionally stayed within reach. Bethune-Cookman, another HBCU program, once traveled to Miami and lost 42-13. Not close, but not an emergency either. The talent gap has always been present; the argument is that smaller programs could find a way to survive it.
The risk is that argument no longer holds. NIL and the transfer portal have made the rebuilding cycle nearly obsolete for a program like Miami. A powerhouse stumbling in a given year is nearly impossible now. FAMU is not walking into a bad Miami team. It is walking into a guaranteed mismatch, every time.
On balance, the fourth-quarter agreement tells you what the final score cannot say alone. When both coaches wave off meaningful play because the game has been decided beyond any reasonable doubt, the competitive fiction the guarantee model depends on has already collapsed. The line to watch is whether the sport moves to limit these matchups, or whether the guarantee-game economics continue to override the competitive calculus. FAMU finished with fewer than 100 total yards. Miami had 856.