Michigan beat Ohio State on Saturday for the fourth season in a row. The win gave this year's senior class at Michigan a clean sweep over their longtime Buckeye rivals, and it was a stunning upset as OSU hosted the game and came into it ranked second in the country. Sure, college players are increasingly transferring between programs and extending their careers into their mid-twenties, but facts like that mean little next to the emotions of a longstanding rivalry that goes back more than a century. The most important fact of all is that Ohio State and Michigan hate each other. When the Wolverines won in Columbus, 13-10, and a player tried to plant a Michigan flag on the field, a brawl unsurprisingly followed.
Reporters were already on the field when the fight broke out, and Nicole Shearin of WBNS got video of what happened. The Michigan player, carrying a Michigan flag on a pole, walked up to an area of the field and motioned as if to plant the flag. He was slowed down, first by what looked like people in Ohio State clothing, then followed by someone in Michigan clothing who put his arms around the player. The Michigan player wasn't able to plant the flag, but kept talking as Ohio State athletes filled up the area. Video from another angle by UMGoBlue showed that after the failed flag planting, an Ohio State player grabbed the cloth of the Michigan flag and ripped it off its pole. In the videos, this is when the fight started. (A different video also showed former Wolverine turned broadcaster Jason Avant securing the loose Michigan flag, but it's hard to tell when that happened relative to everything else.)
The UMGoBlue video showed the pepper spray being used, about 39 seconds in. In the video, an officer took out a can and sprayed pepper spray in the direction of the football players. The spray was visible, as was the cloud of droplets in the air, making people flinch and turn away as officers screamed some form of "get back." A second officer waved a can in the air and appeared to shoot more pepper spray in another direction. Over at 247 Sports, Zach Shaw wrote that reporters and photographers on the field got red eyes from the spray.
(UMGoBlue later posted more video of the entire postgame on the field that you can see here. The pepper spray also can be seen near the end of this WSYX video.)
Afterward, coaches for both teams spoke to reporters. Ohio State's Ryan Day said he didn't know all the details, "but I know that these guys are looking to put a flag on our field and our guys weren't gonna let that happen." Michigan's Sherrone Moore said, "On our guys, I didn’t see they had the flag, and guys were waving it around, and their guys charged us. So it was emotion on both sides. It can’t happen. Rivalry games get heated, especially this one. It’s the biggest one in the country, so we gotta handle that better."
"Honestly, like, it all happened so fast," said Michigan defensive end Josaiah Stewart, via 247 Sports. "We're planting the flag and next thing you know everybody's getting rushed, and a long fight brought a lot of people, they have their whole team there, there was a lot of them. And then next thing you know we're all getting pepper sprayed, so you just got to keep your emotions in check, both sides."
OSU police released a statement that said officers from multiple law enforcement agencies were on the field during the brawl, and "multiple officers representing Ohio and Michigan" used pepper spray. Per the statement, OSU police will investigate what happened. A police union president said one officer was hurt and taken to a hospital but provided no details on what type of injury it was, how severe it was, or how it happened.
