Jimmy Clausen causes a stir with ‘Catholics vs. Cousins’ tweet

Jimmy Clausen is best known these days as the Carolina Panthers’ third-string quarterback -- in other words, we haven’t heard much about him lately.

Until recently, when the former Notre Dame quarterback tweeted a photo of a T-shirt touting the upcoming BCS championship game between the Fighting Irish and Alabama as “Catholics vs. Cousins.”

It’s a play on the classic Notre Dame vs. Miami matchup in 1988, dubbed “Catholics vs. Convicts.” In this case, the “cousins” would be the Crimson Tide because apparently everyone in Alabama is related. Or something like that.

Naturally Clausen received plenty of backlash for the photo, which he has since removed from his Twitter feed -- but not without telling us all to lighten up Monday morning: “Some people have to much time on your hands! It’s a shirt people lol.”

A few minutes later, the Westlake Village Oaks Christian star added: “The shirt was sent to me! I was saying THANK YOU.” (According to Outkick the Coverage, Clausen tweeted out a request for the shirt the day it was released.)

But about an hour later, Clausen issued a real apology, again on Twitter: “I’m sorry if I offended anyone by posting that shirt, I didn’t mean anything by it at all...Looking forward to a great game in Miami!”

The lesson here is it’s just not a good idea to accuse a college and its entire fan base of inbreeding. Some people are bound to be offended.

ALSO:

Watch Danny Amendola spike ball into usher’s face

Is Kirk Cousins too good to be a backup quarterback?

Will Adrian Peterson break Eric Dickerson‘s rushing record?