Baker Mayfield responds to rivalry week flag incidents: ‘Let the boys play’

Baker Mayfield caught wind of all the flag planting over the weekend that boiled over in some college football rivalry games.

The one that really stood out was Ohio State–Michigan where the Wolverines planted their flag at midfield following the upset victory. It led to a brawl at midfield which was an ugly scene that included alleged pepper spraying from officers on multiple players.

But Mayfield thinks flag planting is simply a part of college football pageantry and the losing team should just take it and move on.”

“OU–Texas does it every time they play, it’s not anything special. You take your L and move on,” Mayfield said. “I’ll leave it at that.”

Mayfield was asked a follow up question and he explained for an NCAA interaction to halt and “just let the boys play.”

“College football is meant to have rivalries,” Mayfield said. “That’s like the Big 12 banning the ‘horns down’ signal. Just let the boys play.”

Mayfield is quite familiar with flag planting, ironically, at Ohio State. Following a win over the Buckeyes in 2017, Mayfield, then an Oklahoma QB, planted the OU flag at midfield.

Safe to say, the Buckeyes didn’t like it then and they really didn’t like it when Michigan did it Saturday.

Baker Mayfield all for flag planting in college football

Mayfield is all for flag planting because if you beat your rival, you own the bragging rights. Safe to say, despite the loss, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day was all for the protection of the field.

Day said his team is full of prideful players who weren’t going to let Michigan plant the flag.

“Yeah I don’t know all the details of it,” Day said in his subdued postgame press conference. “But I know that these guys are looking to put a flag on our field and our guys weren’t going to let that happen. I’ll find out exactly what happened but this is our field and certainly we’re embarrassed at the fact we lost the game but there’s some prideful guys on our team that weren’t just going to let that happen.”

Mayfield would be the type to have Day and the Buckeyes “take the L” and move on. Ohio State will have to do so in a hurry because they have a College Football Playoff game to prepare for.

Whether it’s home or away is to be determined.