Baker Mayfield is not sorry, actually.
After shredding Ohio State's defense for 386 yards and three touchdowns through the air in a 31-16 win over the No. 2 team in the country in their own stadium, Mayfield got a little frisky with his celebration, attempting to plant Oklahoma's flag into the rubber turf of Ohio Stadium.
After a media firestorm, Mayfield apologized for his antics the following Monday. But he revealed in GQ magazine that the apology was far from sincere.
From Clay Skipper of GQ Magazine:
...Mayfield says he knew it was a big deal when he heard from the “higher-ups” at Oklahoma that he needed to apologize, which he says was “just jaw-dropping” to him. “I won't even get into it,” he says. Then he gets into it.
Mayfield begins to recount how he was told that that type of display was not what Oklahoma football was about. As he does, you can see him getting worked up. “Actually we won. That's what we're about. I had done so much and worked so hard to play for that school, I was just kinda”—here he pauses to find the words, careful but not too careful—“almost embarrassed for them to tell me to apologize.”
But of course Mayfield did say he was sorry. I begin to ask him how heartfelt that apology actually was, on a scale of 1 to 10, but I can barely get the question out before he answers. “Zero,” he says. He repeats himself forcefully, looking me right in the eye so that I don't miss the point. “Zero. Absolutely not.”
Then the moment cools and the storm passes. “Which might hurt some Ohio fans' feelings,” he says. “But I think we're all good now.”
The incident did leave a bad taste in the mouths of many Buckeye faithful, though Urban Meyer himself holds no ill will, calling Mayfield "one of my favorite players of all time," praising his competitiveness.
As the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns, Mayfield is now trying to bring an Ohio football team a championship himself, instead of standing in the way.
