Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield might be the best quarterback in college football. He set an all-time single-season efficiency record last year, and he currently has a higher passer rating in 2017. Mayfield spends most of his weeks lighting up up helpless defenses, and he’s not shy about twisting the knife after big games. That’s all fun and good.
Iowa State beat Oklahoma and used 2 of Baker Mayfield’s burns against him
Mayfield’s charisma is awesome, but it has a price.
Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
On Saturday, Mayfield lost. His Sooners were favored by 31 and lost by a touchdown at home to Iowa State, with his heave on a late fourth down falling incomplete. The Cyclones then took a couple of Mayfield classic burns and redirected them at OU.
After the game, Mayfield seemed to know what was coming.
He was correct. Let’s talk about the two things Iowa State did.
1. “WHO’S YO’ DADDY?”
That’s what some Iowa State player or coach yelled near a microphone in the seconds just after Mayfield failed on that late fourth-down conversion, sealing the game.
The comment calls us back to a viral moment Mayfield was involved in two weeks earlier. Before a win at Baylor, the two teams verbally skirmished at midfield.
“You forgot who daddy is,” Mayfield taunted. “I’m gonna have to spank you today.”
Mayfield was 13-of-19 for 283 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions. His passer rating that night was 245.6. He definitely spanked Baylor.
Against Iowa State, Mayfield was good. His rating was 170.6, which is excellent for most of the country’s non-Mayfield quarterbacks. He cleared 300 yards and had two touchdowns and no interceptions. He ran for 57 yards and another score.
But he lost, so Iowa State said what it wanted. That’s life.
2. THE FLAG PLANT
In a 31-16 win at then-No. 2 Ohio State on Sept. 9, Mayfield was clinical. He had 386 yards, three touchdown passes, and, as usual, no picks.
When the game ended, Mayfield ran to midfield and speared an OU flag into the turf at Ohio Stadium. It was a fun, brazen, and an arguably well-earned act of disrespect:
Ohio State fans got mad, as Ohio State fans do when their team loses a football game. Someone or something got to Mayfield and convinced him to apologize. Mayfield claimed he wasn’t trying to be disrespectful. The flag-plant wasn’t some kind of horrible thing to do, but it was disrespectful. That’s the whole point of flag-planting.
Flash forward to the moments after Iowa State’s win in Norman:
I hope Mayfield keeps being himself anyway.
He’s fun to watch during games and after them. In the game of college football trash talk, blowback like Iowa State’s is just the cost of doing business.
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