Yes, Georgia's 65-7 thumping of TCU was a game that may have kept your attention for the same reason as some people watch auto racing — to watch the wreckage.

It was also a reason to think about other bad beatdowns. Star Tribune columnist and ESPN personality Myron Medcalf posted this query on Twitter to get one conversation started:

And it also got us thinking about some of the biggest blowouts in Minnesota football history. The Vikings' infamous "41-donut" loss to the New York Giants in the 2000 NFL playoffs may come to mind quickly. But we're talking more about how it looked on the scoreboard at the final whistle. And we're sticking to the college game here.

Here are five games that went really, really badly for the team that came out on the bottom, presented from bottom to top, as they should be, when ranked ranked by margin of defeat:

  • Nebraska 84, Gophers 13 (1983): The Gophers started the 1982 season 3-0 before losing their next eight games. They started 1983 with a win over a bad Rice team and opened their home schedule against the Cornhuskers, who scored on 12 drives that lasted a total of about 14 minutes. "Everyone in the country is laughing at us right now," said Chuck Dickerson, the team's defensive coordinator, who was gone at the end of the season.
  • St. John's 84. Martin Luther 6 (2018): Martin Luther was rewarded for winning the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference title with a first-round playoff game against the Johnnies, who led 42-0 after the first quarter. Martin Luther scored just before halftime and the Johnnies amassed 717 yards in total offense.
  • Concordia (Moorhead) 97, Macalester 6 (1977): Macalester was in the midst of what would become an NCAA record 50-game losing streak, so this game was buried amid the annual tally of lopsided losses. One note: The Scots scored on the first play of the game to take a 6-0 lead before the Cobbers rallied to win.
  • St. Thomas 97, St. Olaf 0 (2017): Some saw this as the moment when MIAC presidents felt that St. Thomas needed to leave the MIAC for its eventual (and largely successful) climb to Division I. For the record, the final five games between the Tommies and Oles had a combined score of 340-14. (St. Thomas also defeated Carleton 80-3 in 2015, a game that was commemorated on the losing team's web site with this headline: "Knights grab early lead but eventually fall to No. 5 St. Thomas.")
  • Gophers 146, Grinnell 0 (1904): Yes, that really happened during the era when the U played a schedule that includes area small colleges, teams that are still rivals and even a couple of high schools. Minnesota went 13-0 that season, including victories over Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Northwestern. It was also the era when touchdowns still counted for only five points. The Grinnell newspaper previewed the game with this headline: "The Iowa College football team left this morning for their annual drubbing at the hands of the University of Minnesota"