You knew it was going to get ugly.

No, not the game. That, even Clemson fans would have told you that they were stunned to see how one-sided the College Football Playoff National Championship was.

What we knew was going to get ugly was the trolling of Alabama.

That’s what happens when you’re a modern-day dynasty and you suffer an unprecedented blowout loss on the biggest stage in the sport. There’s so rarely an opportunity to troll Alabama that naturally, everyone not in Crimson was going to take their shot.

Clemson fans did it near the end of the game in Levi’s Stadium with an “S-E-C! S-E-C!” chant. That’s pretty much become the go-to troll every time an SEC team loses in the postseason. Texas fans did the same thing to Georgia after handling the Dawgs in the Sugar Bowl.

But for Alabama on Monday night, that was just the beginning of the trolling. Clemson players didn’t even wait to leave the postgame locker room to get a jab at the defending champs.

“Sweet Home Alabama” as background music for a post-Alabama victory is pretty standard:

https://twitter.com/BR_CFB/status/1082655649933258752

Ah, but it didn’t stop there.

Clemson players decided to bring back something even more specific to the university. This year, Alabama of course brought back the “Dixieland Delight” tradition in the fourth quarter of home games amidst some controversy over some NSFW language that students added to the song.

So what did Clemson listen to on the bus ride back to the hotel, you ask?

Yep. That’s some serious trolling.

Clemson earned the right to do that. It put together one of the most impressive single-game performances we’ve ever seen. To beat a Nick Saban-coached team by 28 points was an unbelievable accomplishment that will be remembered for a long time.

They weren’t the only Tigers to take joy in Alabama’s defeat. Scroll through the feed of any Auburn fan on Monday night (and probably every day since then) and you’ll see no shortage of trolling tweets.

The most famous Auburn fan, Tigers great and current “NBA on TNT” analyst Charles Barkley, delivered his troll of Alabama on live television:

https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1082508501174362112

The best part about that video is at the end when Kenny Smith says, “what place did y’all come in?”

But trolling Alabama is not about logic or reason. It’s about getting whatever little dig in possible. Some digs probably sting more than others.

It’s a good thing that Saban isn’t on Twitter. If he was, he would have seen that even his first love (Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies) had some fun at his expense.

LITTLE DEBBIE FROM THE TOP ROPE!!!!

Goodness. The man is suffering enough.

How Saban isn’t on Little Debbie commercials everywhere is beyond me. I’m surprised they haven’t paid him to place Little Debbies right next to his Coke bottles at every press conference. Or maybe Coke as exclusive rights to that? Who knows.

All I know is that you didn’t see Coke trolling the G.O.A.T. like that.

Some really good parody videos came of this

The parody reaction videos space has become pretty crowded on the internet. Three of the best in the business delivered some A+ reactions to Alabama’s loss.

Scooter Magruder, who does weekly videos on fans reacting to college football games, might have saved his best for last.

This is spot on:

“Is this what losing feels like?”

Perfect.

And this, from Funny Maine, included some apology calls to teams Alabama beat this year:

SEC Shorts chronicled the postgame feeling for Alabama, which was essentially like a hospital patient after the beating it took:

“Hopefully we can have him eating solid foods by A-Day and PT by fall practice.”

I imagine that’s how it felt for plenty of Alabama fans, who had to deal with the hurling of insults from a bunch of different fanbases.

Again, this is a rare moment in time. People recognized that window was open.

Speaking of people who would not let a chance to troll Alabama slip away …

The ultimate SEC troll

You knew that Danny Kanell was going to have some thoughts about the ACC vs. SEC showdown. He wasn’t really anywhere to be found when LSU beat his 2017 “National Champion” UCF Knights, but when the Tide turned on Monday night, Kanell was firing the trolling tweets left and right.

First, he started with the SEC-wide troll job:

Of course Kanell didn’t stop there.

It’s interesting because the thing that Kanell criticizes SEC fans for is riding the coat tails of Alabama. Yet he, a Florida State QB/fan, didn’t seem to have much of a problem celebrating in Clemson’s glory (Clemson was 1 of the ACC’s 2 teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25):

Ah, Kanell. Of course.

It would have been weird if Kanell had kept quiet and not pointed out that the ACC did something big on the national stage. Somebody would have probably had to go and check up on him to make sure he wasn’t involved in an accident or something.

There were plenty more tweets from Kanell that were anti-Alabama/SEC. Lord knows they’ll continue for the next calendar year, as well.

But his best troll of the night was actually pretty spot on:

Now there’s something we can all agree on.