Opinion: College Football Players Need to Learn How to Lose

(Cover image from Getty)

By: Lucas de Lima

With the end of the college football season comes rivalry week, the long-awaited weekend after Thanksgiving where your favorite school faces its dreaded rivals and bragging rights for the next 364 days are on the line.

As with any sport, with rivalry comes a lot of emotion, and this emotion was on full display this past Saturday, November 30th, as the college football regular season drew to an exciting finish all across the country.

The biggest game of the 9:00AM PST timeslot of Saturday was “The Game,” the classic clash between the University of Michigan Wolverines and the Ohio State University Buckeyes. Arguably the most heated rivalry in all of North American sports, the Buckeyes came into this game with all of the pressure on them.

Playing at home in Columbus, as the #2 ranked team in the country and favored by 20.5 points over the unranked Wolverines, the Buckeyes were expected to dominate, clinch their ticket to the Big Ten Championship game, and prevent losing in 4 straight years to the Wolverines for the first time since 1991.

The end result was nothing short of embarrassing for the Buckeyes.

The Buckeyes ended up losing 13-10, in what was the biggest upset in the series since 1969.The Buckeyes were outplayed all game long, running for almost 100 yards less than the Wolverines, throwing two interceptions, and coming up short when it mattered most.

During their postgame celebrations, the Wolverines attempted to plant their team flag in the middle of the field directly on the block letter O of the Buckeyes. Before this could happen though, Buckeyes players ran over and confronted the Wolverines at midfield. Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer grabbed the flag before it could be planted, and a large brawl between the two team immediately ensued.

Several punches were thrown, with some players reportedly leaving the field bloodied. Ohio and Michgan Police intervened and use pepper spray to diffuse the situation.

Fox broadcaster Gus Johnson had some comment about the situation that immediately caught my attention. “Now there’s some skirmishes on the field, an unsportsmanlike gesture by the Wolverines. Unnecessary,” Johnson said. “They won the game, no need to be disrespectful.”

Flag planting is commonplace in today’s college football, and a powerful statement by the winning team. But is it disrespectful? Of course it is! That’s a big reason as to why it’s so popular.

To outplay another football team on the gridiron for 60 minutes of game time and 3 hours of real time, to be tougher on the line of scrimmage, to run harder and faster, to make better decisions with the ball, and to end up with more points than the other team is a victory well-deserved.

After figuratively marking your territory, all that is left is to literally mark your territory on your opponents campus, in their stadium, in the center of their field, right in the middle of the logo that they proudly wear day-in and day-out, all year long.

It can definitely come off as disrespectful. Their logo on top of your logo. Their colors clashing with your colors.

That is why you do all that you can during the game to prevent the flag-planting from even taking place. You know that is a real possibility that your logo may be stabbed by an opposing team’s flag after a loss, so you should win the game to stop that from happening.

During a postgame interview directly after the chaos on the field, Michigan running back Kalel Mullings said “Some people, they gotta learn how to lose, man. You can’t be fighting and stuff just cause you lost the game. We had 60 minutes, we had four quarters to do all that fighting and now people want to talk and fight. That’s wrong, it’s just bad for the game, classless in my opinion. People gotta be better.”

It must be the most gut-wrenching feeling having to watch another team celebrate on your field, yet that is exactly what you have to do. Do your best Stefon Diggs impression and use the loss as motivation. Take it on the chin and move forward.

Former University of Oklahoma Sooners star quarterback Baker Mayfield, who himself famously planted a flag at Ohio stadium back in 2017, had this to say on this years incident. “OU-Texas does it every time they play. It’s not anything special. You take your ‘L’ and you move on. I’ll leave it at that.”

Both Ohio State and Michigan were fined $100,000 by the Big Ten Conference for the postgame brawl.

This absolutely isn’t the first time that flags have been planted after a college football game. The Texas Longhorns planted their flag midfield following their win over the Wolverines this past September, and no brawls broke out. Michigan even did it after their last win over the Buckeyes in Columbus back in 2022, and no brawls broke out then either.

This wasn’t the only postgame incident on Saturday. Similar fights stemming from flag-planting broke out postgame at the Florida Gators versus Florida State Seminoles and North Carolina State Wolfpack versus North Carolina Tar Heels games. In both games the home team lost, and bitterly responded to the visiting teams attempting to mark their territory with their colors.

In the Florida-Florida State matchup in particular, Seminoles Head Coach Mike Norvell snubbed the postgame handshake from Gators Head Coach Billy Napier out of frustration for the way that Napier’s players acted after the Gators 31-11 win.

Norvell said, “I told him what I thought. They won the game. They have the right to celebrate, just like we have in the previous years. It was just the way that we operate. And that’s fine; you want to come and do that, that is absolutely a decision you can have within a team.”

Florida Head Coach Billy Napier apologized for his players planting the flag on the Seminoles logo. Napier called the act “embarrassing” and said that “there will be consequences for all involved.”

I understand where Napier is coming from, apologizing on behalf of his players for being the reason that the two teams began fighting unnecessarily after a good game of football.

But Napier should stand up for his team for having pride in their school and rightfully celebrating after a blowout of their hated in-state rivals. Yes, starting physical altercations with other people is frowned upon, but if you are celebrating with your teammates and the other team has a problem with that, so be it.

Flags weren’t the only thing that were planted midfield on Saturday. After the annual Territorial Cup, in which the Arizona State Sun Devils destroyed their rival the Arizona Wildcats at the Wildcats stadium by a 49-7 blowout, Sun Devils defensive lineman Jacob Rich Kongaika stabbed a devils pitchfork on the A logo of the Wildcats.

The interesting thing about Kongaika is that he played two seasons for the Wildcats, even recovering a fumble against his current team in last years Territorial Cup win for the Wildcats.

This shows how quickly a player can become loyal to a school, getting immersed in the culture and traditions of a school that they defend for 60 minutes every Saturday.

These schools are everything to these players, and earning the victory for their school delivers immense pride and satisfaction. Losing a game for your school can have the adverse effect.

Yet, even after all of the animosity and anger, after all the brawls and bitterness, there is one thing that all sports fans and player can come together to agree on:

Losing sucks.

Tags: college football, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, redwood sports, rhs, visalia ca