News surfaced earlier this week that the USC Bookstore was selling shirts that mocked the Alabama Crimson Tide ahead of the Trojans’ Sept. 3 showdown with the defending national champions.
Not surprisingly, Alabama backers weren’t going to take such a slight in stride without a response.
The shirt selling at the USC Bookstore bears the message, “Roll Tears Roll,” which of course is a snarky variation on the "Roll Tide"/"Roll Tide Roll" that has long been Alabama’s rallying cry.
The USC Bookstore’s official Twitter account noted earlier this week that the shirts are flying off the shelves.
The wisdom of provoking a college football program that has won four national championships in seven years notwithstanding, to assume that such trolling would go unanswered by the rabid Crimson Tide fan base would be foolish.
And now, we have evidence of Crimson Tide Nation’s response: Another t-shirt, which cleverly invokes the name of a former Trojan football icon whose reputation has taken a precipitous drop -- to put it mildly -- since his Heisman Trophy-winning days at USC.
Yep, the shirt being sold in response to the “Roll Tears Roll” tee makes reference to disgraced Trojan great O.J. Simpson.
Cold-blooded, to say the least.
The shirt reads “Our OJ Only Killed Clemson,” which references Crimson Tide tight end O.J. Howard’s five-reception, 208-yard, two-touchdown performance in Alabama’s 45-40 victory over the Tigers in the College Football Playoff championship game in January.
Suffice to say, the USC-Alabama showdown in September at the 2016 Cowboys Classic at AT&T Stadium has all the makings of a real humdinger of a doozy.
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