Q: iPod 5th Gen updated to IOS 10.0.2 and won't restore to 9.3.5, help!

I work for a company that has 28  5th gen touch iPod's. So far 3 of the 28 have updated to the new IOS 10.0.2 and the others are asking to update. This is strange because apple does not support 5th gen iPod's to be updated but here we are.I backed up a few of the iPod's (different from the updated ones as they were not backed up before the update) with the 9.3.5 update and tried restoring the iPod's that updated to 10.0.2  using there restore points but it failed. I then proceeded to downloading the 9.3.5.ipsw file and tried restoring them that way but again failed. I have tried all the basic's you would do from restarting the iPod's and computer to checking for iTunes updates and reinstalling iTunes. I am at a loss and need help. Is this something apple should be fixing since they released an incompatibly update that has paralyzed my iPod's?