Ryan Day, Ohio State Staff Made Sure Players Didn’t Plant Flag After Michigan Win

By Dan Hope on November 30, 2025 at 1:58 pm
Ryan Day and Sherrone Moore on the field after the game
Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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Ryan Day and his staff made sure no one planted a flag after Ohio State’s win at Michigan on Saturday.

A few Ohio State players – namely cornerbacks Davison Igbinosun and Devin Sanchez and tight end Will Kacmarek – brought flags toward the middle of the field with apparent intentions to plant them following Ohio State’s 27-9 victory. But Day ensured that wouldn’t happen by standing on the Block M, all the while several Ohio State assistant coaches and staffers told players to go back to the locker room.

Michigan players also lingered on the field until Day asked Michigan coach Sherrone Moore, while assuring Moore that Ohio State wouldn’t plant a flag, to get his team off the field so that there wouldn’t be a postgame altercation.

“Sherrone, I’m just saying, if we don’t want to have a problem, we gotta get them out of here. I’m not gonna plan the flag or any of that,” Day told Moore.

“I got you,” Moore said, with both coaches giving each other some side-eye, before Moore instructed his team to return to the locker room.

Michigan running back Bryson Kuzdzal told reporters during the Wolverines’ postgame press conference that the players stayed on the field because they wanted to ensure Ohio State wouldn’t plant a flag.

“We can’t let that happen,” Kuzdzal said. “We didn’t know if they were going to or not, but if they were trying to, they were not going to.”

Of course, Michigan was the one who initiated the idea of planting a flag on the opponent’s field after winning The Game, doing so after its 13-10 win over the Buckeyes in Columbus in 2024. That flag-plant prompted a brawl between the two teams as Ohio State players took exception to Michigan’s actions. Police officers deployed pepper spray to break up the altercation, and both teams were fined $100,000 by the Big Ten for violating the conference’s sportsmanship policy.

Given that, it’s no surprise that some Ohio State players were tempted to complete the revenge arc by planting a flag of their own on the Michigan Stadium turf. But Day felt it was important for his team to take the high road after winning.

“I've thought, as you can imagine over the years after winning this game, what I'd say in this press conference, and I'm gonna save all those comments because I think the best thing to do is is win with humility, and that's what we're gonna do, and I think that speaks to our program and speaks to what it means to be a Buckeye,” Day said during his postgame interview on FOX.

While they didn’t plant a flag, the Buckeyes still had plenty of fun celebrating with Ohio State fans after the game and as a team in the locker room.

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