Southern coach Marshall Faulk sounds off on money games after 77-6 loss at Houston: 'Wasn't really a game'

The Pro Football Hall of Famer told the truth about buy games following a humiliating performance

Sep 13, 2026 at 9:17 am ET • 3 min read

Playing in the Southwestern Athletic Conference within the FCS simply was not going to prepare the Southern Jaguars for Saturday's expected onslaught vs. 22nd-ranked Houston.

As Southern coach Marshall Faulk put it following his team's embarrassing 77-6 loss, there's no need to disguise what amounts to a paid-for beatdown.

"That wasn't really a game, that was kind of a preseason crash-dummy test for Houston to work on all the good plays," Faulk said.

According to The Houston Chronicle, Southern received a $450,000 guarantee for the game, 125 pizzas as a postgame meal for players and 400 complimentary tickets with the option to purchase 1,000 more.

Buy games in college football are common and help facilitate revenue for the FCS team, but it certainly waters down the competition. Over the first two weeks of the season, nearly every preseason top-25 team has played an inferior opponent from the FCS ranks as a ramp-up of sorts before starting the conference slate.

Most of those matchups need not be under the guise of expected competitiveness, however.

"Let's just be real, OK? They're better than us. We're FCS, everybody knows what this is, let it be what it is," Faulk said. "This is not. Kentucky State, man We can't dig ourselves a whole like that'd expect to play good football or be in a game like this. They've got a really nice budget.

"I was literally standing on the sideline thinking to myself, back when let's say Southern had juniors and seniors ... this could be a competitive game playing a team like Houston. In today's landscape, we don't have the budget to compete against them. We just don't."

Looking at several Power Four vs. FCS matchups thus far, outcomes have been painful for those receiving the check.

• Miami 77, Florida A&M 77
• Georgia 63, Tennessee State 3
• Kansas State 77, Nicholls 3
• TCU 63, Grambling 7
• Arizona State 70, Morgan State 7
• Syracuse 66, New Hampshire 3
• Cincinnati 62, Western Carolina 10
• UCF 73, Bethune Cookman 6

Outside of the Power Four, even JMU and first-year coach Billy Napier got into the glorified scrimmage action in Week 2 after clobbering Wagner during a record-setting 87-3 win.

During Saturday's loss at Houston, Faulk and the Jaguars agreed to a shortened eight-minute fourth quarter after falling behind 70-0 after three. Houston registered 388 rushing yards from 10 different ballcarriers, threw five touchdown passes and tied a school-record with 28 points in the first quarter.

Southern finished with four first downs, minus-6 yards rushing and three turnovers.

"The reality is our kids were giving their best effort, but we're not good enough to beat a team that doesn't beat themselves," Faulk said. "There's not anything we could've done. I've been around a lot of football, man. We don't have the bodies, we don't have the funds, we don't have the equipment ... all the stuff needed to compete with a team like that. 

"Guts and glory and want and will is not enough to compete with a team like that."

Faulk, who starred in college at San Diego State before a Pro Football Hall of Fame career in the NFL, is one of several former pros trying his hand in the coaching ranks at the lower level. Michael Vick is in his second season at Norfolk State while Desean Jackson is trying to turn things around at Delaware State, among others.

Faulk signed a three-year contract with Southern last November after serving under Deion Sanders at Colorado last season as the Buffs' running backs coach.

Faulk is one of just two running backs in NFL history with at least 12,000 rushing and 5,000 career receiving yards. He was named NFL MVP in 2000, a year after he helped the Rams win their first Super Bowl while also becoming the second player in league history to go over 1,000 yards in both rushing and receiving.