Spotlight: Rutgers thought it had a chance against a stumbling Michigan State team. It didn’t.

Of all teams to have it so rough, Rutgers is the only team in the nation that has played three teams ranked in the top five of the College Football Playoff rankings.

As you might guess, those games did not go so well for the Scarlet Knights. They lost to No. 2 Michigan, 78-0; No. 4 Washington, 48-13; and No. 5 Ohio State, 58-0.

So imagine the excitement Rutgers must have felt Saturday about facing a similarly downtrodden team, Michigan State. Rutgers had lost six consecutive games, but the Spartans had dropped seven in a row. A chance for Scarlet Knights!

Yeah, that didn’t go so well, either. Michigan State won, 49-0, meaning that teams from the Great Lakes State sank Rutgers by a combined 127-0 this season.

“We got dominated from the start to the finish up front on both sides of the ball,” Rutgers Coach Chris Ash said.

The Scarlet Knights have been held to seven points or fewer five times in seven Big Ten Conference games, and lost those games by an average score of 45-4.

The bright side — and yes, we’re stretching here: In its first nine games, the Rutgers defense had 12 red-zone stops. That led the Big Ten — and indicates that some of those lopsided numbers could have easily been worse.

Seeing red

Alabama Coach Nick Saban was criticized many places, including the pages of the Los Angeles Times, for head-in-the-sand comments he made about not knowing, or much caring, about what had happened during the presidential election.

But the commander in chief of the nation’s top-ranked team set one part of the record straight after his Crimson Tide swallowed up Mississippi State, 51-3.

He told reporters he turned in an absentee ballot, adding: “I never said I didn’t vote.”

Revisiting the zone

With a 36-yard scoring pass to Curtis Samuel near the end of the first quarter of a 62-3 Ohio State rout over Maryland, Buckeyes quarterback J.T. Barrett accounted for his 96^th career touchdown, a Big Ten record.

The previous record was held by Drew Brees while playing for Purdue from 1997-2000.

Barrett wasn’t finished, either.

Before the pass to Samuel, the quarterback scored on a four-yard run. After the pass to Samuel, he added an 11-yard touchdown run and an eight-yard scoring pass to Dontre Wilson as Ohio State opened a 42-point lead at halftime.

Barrett was replaced early in the third quarter with the Buckeyes up, 48-3. In his college career, he has passed for 68 touchdowns and run for 30.

And yes, he’s the same player who lost his starting job last season after passing for 34 touchdowns and running for 11 as a freshman.

They’re winners

Navy’s senior class has won 36 football games in its years at the academy, which ties a school record first established in 1909 and equaled by last season’s seniors.

No surprise, the Midshipmen’s lastest win was sparked by … a senior.

Also no surprise: That senior was quarterback Will Worth.

Worth, who started the season as a backup, ran for three touchdowns and passed for another as Navy defeated Tulsa, 42-40.

An additional non-surprise: Navy, with its triple-option offense, had a 15-minute advantage in time of possession over explosive Tulsa, which averages 42 points a game.

Worth ran for 122 yards, his fifth consecutive game rushing in triple digits. He has scored a rushing touchdown in each of Navy’s nine games.

Next step is a Lou-Lou

Notre Dame kept its bowl hopes alive by defeating Army, 44-6. The Fighting Irish will need to win their final regular-season games, against Virginia Tech and USC, to reach six wins.

And Coach Brian Kelly is still one step ahead — or is it behind? — former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz on the kind of list he doesn’t want to lead.

Holtz had a “record” 30 losses in his 11 seasons as coach of the Irish. Kelly is 59-29 nearing the end of his seventh season.

Pay off

It’s a good thing Florida defeated South Carolina, 20-7. Otherwise, it could have been said that the Gators were paying to get beat.

Will Muschamp, in his first year as South Carolina’s coach, is still receiving installments from a $3.15-million buyout he received after Florida fired him as head coach two years ago.

The second of four $787,500 payments is due next week.

Streak ends

Mount Union almost never loses. Almost.

The Division III power lost to John Carroll, 31-28, snapping a 112-game winning streak that dated to Oct. 22, 2005.

But don’t bet against the Purple Raiders starting right up again.

That 2005 loss snapped another winning streak, one that lasted 110 games.

Run down

Kentucky rushed for 444 yards and averaged 8.1 yards per carry against Tennessee, and lost, 49-36, because Tennessee ran for 376 yards and averaged 9.2 yards a carry.

Teams that had rushed for at least 400 yards in a game were 30-0 this season before the Wildcats’ loss, according to ESPN. Kentucky and Tennessee combined for 1,234 yards in total offense.

Extra points

One week after he was knocked unconscious during a game against Ohio State and taken to the hospital in an ambulance, Tommy Armstrong made his school-record-tying 43rd start at quarterback for Nebraska.

Miami defeated Virginia, 34-14, as Brad Kaaya passed for 228 yards, moving to No. 2 on the Hurricanes’ career list for passing yardage. Kaaya, a junior from West Hills Chaminade High, passed Jacory Harris, who passed for 8,826 yards from 2008-11, and trails only Ken Dorsey, who passed for 9,565 from 1999-2002. … In the loss, Virginia running back Taquan Mizell became the first player in Atlantic Coast Conference history to accumulate 1,500 yards rushing and receiving in his career. His three catches for 27 yards gave him 1,517 yards receiving. He has run for 1,831 yards.

Texas running back D’Onta Foreman rushed for 167 yards in a 24-20 loss to No. 16 West Virginia, his 11th consecutive game with 100 yards or more. That ties Earl Campbell’s school record.

After rushing for 93 yards against Maryland, Mike Weber needs 65 yards to become the third Ohio State freshman to run for 1,000 yards in a season. Maurice Clarett, who ran for 1,237 yards in 2002, and Robert Smith, who rushed for 1,126 yards in 1990, are the others.

During Oklahoma’s seven-game winning streak, wideout Dede Westbrook has 15 touchdowns — 14 by pass reception and one by punt return. He made two scoring catches in the Sooners’ 45-24 win over Baylor, though he finished with a modest four receptions for 88 yards. Westbrook reached triple digits in yards receiving in the previous six games.

Los Angeles Times wire services contributed to this report.

mike.hiserman@latimes.com

Twitter: @MikeHiserman