The Clemson Tigers have been on of the nation’s top football programs for some time now and they have a national championship trophy to show for it. In 1981, the Tigers won the championship by going 12-0 and defeating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. For their win, the team received a number of trophies, including the “Grantland Rice Trophy” given out by the Football Writer’s Association of America.
According to College Spun, the team’s trophy got broken Tuesday afternoon when the team took their awards out of the trophy case to clean it. The Clemson Insider’s Gabby Bates was at the university when the team was cleaning it and got a look at all the Tigers’ accolades over the last 35 years.
https://twitter.com/nicole_gabby15/status/638753598248222720/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Apparently, the national championship trophy got knocked over and broke.
The Football Writers National Championship Trophy from 1981 just fell and broke pic.twitter.com/pRJ9bQqwRL
— TigerNet.com (@ClemsonTigerNet) September 1, 2015
Of course, it wasn’t long after this news spread that people began making jokes about the trophy “Clemsoning” itself.
@ClemsonTigerNet @Orange_Emperor The first half is good, the second half totally falls apart? Man, I've never seem a trophy Clemson itself.
— Sauna Insider (@NickHannula) September 1, 2015
I don’t know if you guys remember but, didn’t Nick Saban drop the crystal football during one of the Alabama Crimson Tide’s championship award ceremonies? I know that former Florida head basketball coach Billy Donovan shattered their national championship trophy from 2008. This isn’t the first time this happened, but at least the trophy wasn’t brand new.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
