Greg McElroy makes his feelings known about the "flag-planting" controversy in eye-catching statement

Week 14 of college football saw the Michigan Wolverines attempting to plant their flag at the Ohio Stadium after beating the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes 13-10 despite being 20.5-point underdogs for the rivalry game. Buckeyes and Wolverines players started fighting on the field, forcing police officers using pepper spray to de-escalate the situation.

On Monday, ESPN analyst Greg McElroy addressed the issue during an episode of "Always College Football."

"The flag planting thing, it just doesn't bother me," McElroy said. "Am I maybe a little bit too brash? Okay, respect the opponent, respect the opposition, respect the logo, all that stuff I think is to be acknowledged and I don't blame teams for defending logos by any stretch. But if a team beats me and they decide to plant the flag, I'm just not gonna be that offended.

"That's a personal opinion. Do some of the antics by some of the teams go over the top? Absolutely. And what happened at the end of the Ohio State - Michigan game was an embarrassing scene for all but I don't know. As far as the flag planting we saw in how many different places, whether Florida-Florida State, Ohio State - Michigan, it's just not that uncommon.

Paul Finebaum blasts Ryan Day for flag-planting comments

During an appearance on the "Matt Barrie Show" Monday, outspoken ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum blasted Ohio State coach Ryan Day for his comments about the flag-planting incident.

“This is the biggest game of the year in college football and they still can’t figure out how to win it,” Finebaum said.' “Then this is a whole another special show about planting the flag, but you know Ryan Day just comes up with just this idiotic statement about, you know, we’re not going to let them do that to our field. Try to beat them first, okay Ryan. You won’t have to worry about that.”

During his postgame news conference, Day spoke about the flag-planting incident that caused the brawl at the Ohio Stadium.

"Yeah I don't know all the details of it," Day said "But I know that these guys are looking to put a flag on our field and our guys weren't going to let that happen. I'll find out exactly what happened but this is our field and certainly we're embarrassed at the fact we lost the game but there's some prideful guys on our team that weren't just going to let that happen."

The Ohio State-Michigan brawl due to the flag-planting saga has brought the issue to the forefront of college football. The move was made popular by former Oklahoma Sooners Heisman winner Baker Mayfield, when he planted a flag at the Ohio Stadium after leading his team to a 31-16 win in 2017.