Week 14 of the 2024 college football season, also known as “Rivalry Week” wrapped up with another chaotic set of results that turned the postseason picture upside down.
One trend that fans couldn’t help but notice was the amount of bad blood and outright brawls centered around the winning team planting the flag on the losing team’s home field immediately after the game was over.
It happened in Michigan-Ohio State, Florida-Florida State, N.C. State-North Carolina and Arizona State-Arizona. In each of those games, the road team won and planted a flag (or pitchfork in ASU’s case) at the home team’s midfield logo, inciting a scuffle.
Of course, it all started with former Oklahoma Sooners quarterback [autotag]Baker Mayfield[/autotag], the original flag-planter. Mayfield famously planted the OU flag midfield after the Sooners went on the road and defeated Ohio State in 2017. The eventual Heisman Trophy winner had a performance (and celebration) for the ages that night in Columbus.
Saturday’s events were a fun reminder, at least for Sooner fans of that fateful evening in The Shoe. Mayfield was asked about his thoughts on Sunday after his Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Carolina Panthers 26-23 in overtime.
“I’ll say this,” Mayfield said after a chuckle. “OU-Texas does it every time they play. It’s nothing special. You take your L, and you move on. College football is meant to have rivalries. It’s like the Big 12 banning the ‘Horns Down’ signal. Just let the boys play.”
The incident between the Wolverines and the Buckeyes is getting the most attention this week. It resulted in pepper spray being deployed by police to break up the brawl between the two team’s players. The Big Ten fined both schools $100,000 for their roles in the melee.
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