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Baker Mayfield caught a bit of a stray after a member of the Texas Longhorns impaled his jersey with a flag following his team’s win over Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry, but another player involved in that stunt asserted they weren’t trying to disrespect the former Sooners QB while providing a bit more context.
The Texas Longhorns headed into Saturday’s showdown against the Oklahoma Sooners as the top-ranked team in the country, and they cemented their status as the squad to beat this season with a decisive 34-3 win in hostile territory to improve to 6-0 heading into their highly anticipated game against Georgia this weekend.
After the game wrapped up, a couple of Texas linebackers decided to make a bit of a statement, as Anthony Hill Jr. placed a Baker Mayfield jersey at midfield before Barryn Sorrell thrust a Longhorns flag into it.
Anthony Hill Jr. and Barryn Sorrell plant the Texas flag through an Oklahoma jersey at midfield after the win in the Red River Shootout. pic.twitter.com/s8855rVY9p
— CJ Vogel (@CJVogel_OTF) October 12, 2024
On Sunday, Mayfield (who was no stranger to flag-related trolling during his time at Oklahoma) had a bemused reaction to that gesture while saying it showed he’d been living “rent-free in their heads for almost a decade.” However, Hill has come forward to try to clear the air.
According to Sports Illustrated, the LB said he wasn’t trying to disrespect Mayfield and clarified the jersey was given to him by a Longhorns fan (likely a member of the Cannon Crew that was responsible for the hole in the jersey), saying:
“To be honest, a fan gave me that jersey—just a random Texas fan—and that was just the first jersey that I had that was OU so we just kind of used that. It was the only jersey we had.
So no hate for Baker Mayfield. I’m actually a big fan. I watched him play in college, so there’s no hate. That was just the first jersey I had seen, and we’re just gonna leave it at that.”
The more you know.