It may be the college football offseason, but rivalries never rest. On Tuesday, graduating Auburn kicker Daniel Carlson went on The Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network/ESPN Radio and talked about how while Alabama held the College Football Playoff national championship, the Tigers were the state champions thanks to their 26-14 win over the Tide in November 25’s Iron Bowl.
Finebaum’s account tweeted Carlson’s quote out, and while the Tide didn’t immediately respond (they were at the White House to celebrate their title, after all), on Wednesday, their team Twitter account fired back with the Krusty Krab-Chum Bucket SpongeBob Squarepants meme:
"They might be National champs but we're State champs" – @DanielCarlson38 pic.twitter.com/guLoGWzOdK
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) April 10, 2018
Just saw this. Little busy yesterday. pic.twitter.com/aBip6bP6QA
— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) April 11, 2018
Yes, that’s the (much-panned) CFP trophy on the left, and the James E. Foy, V-ODK Sportsmanship Trophy (presented to the winner of the Iron Bowl) on the right. And while it’s funny to get this salty about an award with “Sportsmanship” in the name, Auburn did start it. (With a little help from Finebaum, always adept at using his platform to stoke rivalry fires.) Weirdly, we don’t seem to have the clip of Carlson actually saying this (the 2:25 clip on the SEC website doesn’t include the “state champs” line), so we don’t know exactly what his tone was, but it’s not surprising that Alabama would react to this quote, even if it was said somewhat jokingly.
We all know that Alabama doesn’t have much use for lesser trophies, and it’s a good thing that they didn’t just have their strength coach smash this one. But the best part of this is that there’s someone connected to Alabama football whose job includes replying to Auburn’s trolling with photoshopped memes. That’s even more important than a waterfall. Let’s just hope that LeBron James and Uninterrupted don’t hit them with a cease-and-desist claiming they invented memes.
[Alabama Football on Twitter]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.