Browns
Baker Mayfield had a rough week even before he walked up to the podium. Then he walked up to the podium in a Michigan jersey.
Key facts
- Baker Mayfield wore a No. 18 Michigan jersey to his Wednesday, September 16 press conference after losing a bet with Todd Bowles.
- Michigan beat Oklahoma 17-10 on Saturday, September 12, 2026.
- Todd Bowles' son, Troy Bowles, is a senior linebacker at Michigan who wears No. 18 and recorded nine tackles and a fumble recovery in that game.
- Mayfield played college football at Oklahoma and won the Heisman Trophy there in 2017.
- Mayfield said of the loss: "It hurts, it hurts real bad."
The bet
College football in the United States works like a second national league, with alumni who follow their old school for life, and NFL locker rooms are full of that loyalty. Mayfield played quarterback at Oklahoma, where he won the Heisman Trophy, American college football's top individual award, in 2017 before Cleveland picked him first overall in the 2018 draft. Todd Bowles' son, Troy, plays linebacker for Michigan. When the two schools met on Saturday, September 12, the coach and his quarterback had a bet riding on it.
Michigan won 17-10, and Troy Bowles, a senior, led Michigan with nine tackles and added a second-quarter fumble recovery, wearing No. 18. The next day, Mayfield and the Buccaneers lost their own opener, 33-27 at Cincinnati, a game in which Mayfield lost three fumbles himself. He had, as he put it, a rough couple of days.
Paying up
At his Wednesday, September 16 press conference, Mayfield showed up in a snug Michigan practice jersey with Troy Bowles' number on it, while Todd Bowles sang Michigan's fight song and shouted "Let's go Blue!" as his quarterback walked up. "It hurts, it hurts real bad," Mayfield said. "It's been a rough couple of days. Damn, Todd." He explained the outcome plainly: Bowles' son was on the winning side, the Sooners were not, "therefore I squeezed into this little tank top."
It is a small moment, but it fits a locker room that just took a hard loss and needed something to laugh about. Bowles is in his fifth season as Tampa Bay's head coach, and a public bet with his own quarterback, over a game his son helped win, is the kind of detail that does not happen in a stiffer building.
Back to business
The jersey comes off before Sunday. Cleveland visits Raymond James Stadium for Tampa Bay's home opener, and Mayfield faces the franchise that drafted him and later moved on from him, a storyline BucsWorld covered in what the Bucs face at quarterback against the Browns. After the turnovers at Cincinnati, recapped in the Buccaneers' 33-27 loss to Cincinnati, Mayfield has bigger things to fix than a lost bet. But for one afternoon, Michigan blue was the story.
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