Fans drop hilarious reactions to Michigan players' wild Ohio gesture to mock Buckeyes: "Put this next to Mona Lisa"
The Michigan Wolverines defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes on the road at Columbus Ohio 13-10, putting Ryan Day's team out of contention for the Big Ten championship game against No. 1 Oregon.
The rivalry encounter marks the fourth straight defeat for Ohio State, which hasn't won an edition of "The Game" since 2019.
This year's defeat was especially hurtful, considering the Buckeyes came in as the No. 2 school in the nation and one of the favorites to win the CFP. The tensions were rising high when an unarmed Michigan player attempted to plant a Wolverine flag on Ohio State's logo in the middle of the turf.
What ensued was a brawl that took several minutes for the police to break off. Fans were quick to react to the Ohio players' gesture to mock the Buckeyes with one person taking a rather comic view of the incident:
"Put this next to the Mona Lisa"
Other fans thought that the incident was rather childish:
"It's childish. It's crazy that you'd promote this. We should be setting better examples for our children and remember that old timey thing we like to call sportsmanship."
One fan was quick to claim "The Game" is the greatest rivalry of them all:
"Greatest game in all of sport"
Some even laughed at the crowd dispersal tactics. Players probably didn't:
"Was this before or after everyone got pepper sprayed for fighting like children?"
A majority of people found the episode hilarious:
"This goes hard. Hilarious."
A picture for the ages:
"That pic is tuff."
Ohio State's Ryan Day reacts to the brawl at the of the defeat to Michigan
In his post-game press, Ryan Day was asked about the incident that occurred toward the end of the encounter. The coach answered saying he isn't necessarily angry at his players for defending the team:
“I don’t know all the details of it but I know these guys are looking to put a flag on our field and our guys weren’t going to let that happen, so, I will find out exactly what happened, but this is our field and certainly we’re embarrassed at the fact we lost the game. But there are some prideful guys on the team that weren’t just going to let that happen.”
While the defeat means that Ohio State will not partake in the Big Ten championship, which will now see Oregon face off against Penn State, their season is far from over. The Buckeyes will almost certainly be one of the 12 teams to be selected for the upcoming college football playoff.