Very few things get people more animated than flags. Like when people put up a flag of a political candidate, or maybe a “don’t tread on me” flag, it tends to raise the stakes. And when Olympic athletes win a race, they take a victory lap with a flag – before getting medals in front of flags. Flags carry outsized emotional value, giving a piece of cloth the symbolic weight of anything from a movement to nation.
That became very clear last Saturday in the final weekend of regular season college football games, often known as rivalry week when you see a lot of interstate and historic grudge matches, the kind of games that usually have a name and a trophy attached. Not surprisingly, those matchups can get a bit heated, a confluence of familiarity and anticipation, as everyone from the field crew to the players have been led to believe this game means just a bit more. And victory is a sign that you’ve now conquered your rival, and to the victor goes the spoils – at least until next year. That’s even more pronounced if you win on foreign soil, if you travel to your enemy’s home field and emerge victorious. And there’s no better way to memorialize that conquest than to plant your school’s flag on the 50-yard line of your opponent’s field.
That’s what happened across Division I football stadiums last weekend. And needless to say, it didn’t go well. Like in Tallahassee, where Florida State head coach Mike Norvell ran to midfield to grab the Gator flag Florida players planted after beating the Seminoles, then went to berate Florida head coach Billy Napier during their postgame handshake. Or in Columbus, Ohio, where a fight broke out after Michigan players tried to stake their flag on Ohio State’s logo. Similar scenes played out in Clemson, Chapel Hill, and Tucson, where Arizona State athletes substituted a pitchfork for a flag – for the Sun Devils, of course. Each of these cases ended in some kind of post-game conflict, usually followed by coaches either accusing or excusing or apologizing for the actions of their team. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney even said, he was “lucky to get out alive.” While that may be an exaggeration, each one of these celebrations threw gasoline on a fire that was still hot.
To be clear, this ritual didn’t start this year, and seems to date back to Baker Mayfield in his playing days at Oklahoma. Mayfield and other former star college quarterback Johnny Manziel have defended the tradition, saying that if you want to stop it, just win the game. On the other hand, most conference commissioners have said it’s got to stop, starting with fines and escalating from there. ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit said that players involved should be suspended for the next game, which for some would be the playoffs.
I’m going to go on record that I hate the flag plant, and not just because I’m adhering to some old-fashioned notion of what college football should or shouldn’t be. Football is, by its very nature, a game of property. You try to dominate field possession and keep you opponent from entering your side of the field. And coaching speeches are built on metaphors of defending your turf and positioning your closest rival as the enemy to be vanquished. So this isn’t all that surprising, especially for players raised in a mediated landscape where postable visuals are the highest currency. So I understand why it happens. And for the record, I also acknowledge that the offended losing coaches are whining a bit too much for guys that make millions a year to not lose games like this.
But, I’d be okay with an approach a bit more like the one Texas coach Steve Sarkisian took before his team played bitter rival Texas A&M on the road last weekend. As he said after his team’s win, where he went to mid-field to make sure the Longhorn flag wasn’t planted, he had watched Ohio State and Michigan get into a fight from his hotel room and didn’t think it was right. And far from me to channel Steve Sarkisian as a model of restraint, but maybe that’s the simple answer. It’s just not right. That’s something a coach can realize just as well as sociologist. And perhaps it’s the only way this will end, not through a conference finger wag but through the mandate of the field general, the one sending out the troops to conquer. Which means you can save your flags for the next election.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler
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