TEXAS FIGHT?
OU's bad-boy quarterback uses Heisman win to disrespect University of Texas
Originally appeared on CultureMap/Austin.
University of Texas football fans now have even more of a reason to curse University of Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield.
Visiting New York City over the weekend for the Heisman Trophy ceremony (he ran away with college football’s most prestigious honor), Mayfield just couldn’t resist flashing the derogatory “Horns Down” gesture — the upside-down version of the “Horns Up” gesture — next to the iconic bull statue on Wall Street. The Twitter account for OU football proudly blasted out a photo of Mayfield’s Longhorn diss.
Mayfield, an Austin native who graduated from Lake Travis High School, is no stranger to antagonizing UT football (or, for that matter, any other football rival). For instance, Mayfield trolled UT quarterback Sam Ehlinger in October, pointing out that Ehlinger’s Westlake High School Chaparrals failed to beat the Lake Travis Cavaliers during the UT QB’s tenure at Westlake.
As any burnt orange-blooded Longhorns fan knows, the “Horns Down” sign is an affront — especially when it’s flaunted by the QB at evil OU. “The ‘Horns Down’ is disrespectful,” Mack Brown, then UT’s head football coach, complained in 2012.
Let us not forget that Mayfield holds a Heisman-size grudge against Brown. The coach bypassed Mayfield when the QB sought to join the Longhorns as a walk-on.
Mayfield tossed a bit of a verbal “Horns Down” in his Heisman acceptance speech, too.
“Although I grew up in Austin, Texas, I was always Sooner born and Sooner bred. When I die, I’ll be Sooner dead,” Mayfield said. “I truly mean that. It’s been a dream for me. It’s an honor to get to represent my school.”
On the Baker Mayfield scale of trash talk, that was a pretty subtle dig from a guy who loves needling his enemies. As Sports Illustrated noted in November, Mayfield “delights in disrespect.”
“I think I was truly born to thrive in hostile environments,” the OU bad boy told the magazine. “I find it fun to have a little back-and-forth conversation with the opposing fan base.”
