Perennial national powers Alabama and Southern Cal won\u2019t renew their college football rivalry until Saturday night, but the games began last week.<\/p>\n
Unbeknownst to former National Scouting Report<\/a> prospect O.J. Howard, the Alabama senior tight end was in the middle of a tshirt war that made headlines across the country.<\/p>\n The first punch was delivered by the USC campus bookstore, which unveiled a tshirt last week that says: \u201cROLL TEARS ROLL.\u201d<\/p>\n After the\u00a0tshirt was released, another shirt – not affiliated with Alabama – became available online that reads: \u201cOUR O.J. ONLY KILLED CLEMSON.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a not-to-subtle reference to former USC star O.J. Simpson and Howard. Simpson was accused of the 1994 murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Howard caught five passes for 208 yards and two touchdowns last January in Alabama\u2019s 45-40 victory over Clemson for the College Football Playoff National Championship.<\/p>\n The Alabama tshirt was available for purchase on TeePublic.com<\/a>, a site that allows users to upload their work.\u00a0Chief Operating Officer Adam Schwartz would not disclose any information on sales of the shirt nor the artist, known only as TheDeuce.<\/p>\n \u201cTeePublic is an open platform that enables designers from around the world to host and sell their own artwork,\u201d Schwartz told AL.com. \u201cWe do not actively police artwork uploaded to the platform and we strictly follow DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] laws, which outlines take-down procedures we adhere to.\u201d<\/p>\n Schwartz confirmed that a take-down request was sent to the site after The Collegiate Licensing Company<\/a> complained that a user of the platform infringed on the company\u2019s rights with a public work. It wasn\u2019t the reference to Southern Cal that warranted the take-down. It was the use of \u201cCLEMSON\u201d on the shirt.<\/p>\n \u201cThe University of Alabama initiated the request to remove the shirt, and the request was supported by Clemson, since its marks were being used without license or approval,\u201d Tammy Purves, Director of Communications and Creative Services for Collegiate Licensing Co., told AL.com. \u201cWhile both universities often support rivalry and game-day designs in good fun, neither university approves of merchandise with distasteful messaging.\u201d<\/p>\n Howard, a native of Prattville, Alabama, is one of three former NSR prospects who will suit up for No. 1 Alabama in Saturday night\u2019s season opener against No. 20 USC at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. He will be joined by a pair of offensive linemen — starting redshirt junior center Bradley Bozeman (Roanoke, Alabama) and reserve redshirt freshman tackle Matt Womack (Hernando, Mississippi) – in the nationally televised game (8 p.m. ET, ABC).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Perennial national powers Alabama and Southern Cal won\u2019t renew their college football rivalry until Saturday night, but the games began last week. Unbeknownst to former National Scouting Report prospect O.J. Howard, the Alabama senior tight end was in the middle of a tshirt war that made headlines across the country. The first punch was delivered … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":11897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[842,452,31,844,222,439,836,839,843,840,838,841,837],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11877"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12047,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11877\/revisions\/12047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}