Michigan shocked No. 2 Ohio State by defeating them 13-10 last Saturday. Arriving at the away game, Michigan was statistically seen as the underdog against Ohio State, but the Wolverines pulled through with a field goal in the last 45 seconds of a tied game. Excited about the huge victory qualifying them for the Big 10 Championship, Michigan players attempted to plant their flag in the middle of the Ohio State field. The Buckeyes, in hopes of defending their home field, charged the players who had placed the flag. The squabble got so violent that police used pepper spray to separate the teams.
Ryan Day, Ohio State’s head football coach, states that he did not see much of the fight and believes his players have too much pride to sit and watch Michigan plant their flag on their field. However, their pride resulted in a $100,000 fine for both teams. The Ohio State University Police Department followed up by stating that officers from multiple law enforcement agencies representing Ohio and Michigan deployed pepper spray, and because of this, Michigan players were seen rubbing their eyes from the pepper spray exposure. The brawl moved toward the Michigan bench once Jack Sawyer, Ohio defensive end, ripped the flag off the pole.
Ohio State student Alex Turley, who was at the game, described, “ I was the furthest from the fight, so people at first weren’t sure what was happening, but then the cameras were showing the fight, and you could see the OSU players rip the Michigan flag.” When asked about his opinions towards the brawl, he stated, “My first thought was they should’ve put all that energy into the game instead of fighting at the end of it,” Turley joked. He then went on to describe something that could explain more about the rivalry between the two schools. “OSU has the tradition of putting red tape ‘Xs’ over every “M” on campus buildings… Some people have started ripping them off the signs to move on and forget about the game, and a lot of people are not happy with the coach anymore.”
Michigan head football coach Sherrone Moore stated that there was “So much emotion on both sides. Rivalry games get heated, especially this one. It’s the biggest one in the country, so we got to handle that better.” Also reflecting on the event, Michigan running back Kalel Mullings said, “For such a great game, you hate to see stuff like that after the game. Just bad for the sport, bad for college football. But at the end of the day, some people got to learn how to lose, man… All that fighting, we have 60 minutes, we have four quarters to do all that fighting, and now you want to talk and fight… Classless, in my opinion. People got to be better.” Similarly, Theresa Kolodziejski expressed, “These are adult men, for crying out loud. If they don’t have the maturity to deal with this without becoming violent, then they’re not really adults.”
Kolodziejski suggested that the schools should hold the players accountable by benching them, canceling future events, and even taking away scholarships. Both teams are currently being held responsible for their actions that took place last Saturday by the Big Ten Conference, which determined that both teams violated the Big Ten Sportsmanship Policy as they failed to show fundamental elements of sportsmanship such as respect and civility. The Conference also stated that the incident compromised the safety of bystanders. Kolodziejski posed that the NCAA should also get involved with evaluating the situation, its consequences, and plans for the future.
