The Monday afternoon following Auburn's loss to Kentucky, a caller to a regional sports radio show who identified himself as a proud supporter of the Tiger's rival Alabama Crimson Tide offered the following bit of snarkiness:
"Well at least one thing come out of Kentucky beating Aubren (apparently pronouncing Auburn in this manner is a speech impediment suffered by a vast majority of the Crimson Tide fanbase)," the caller opined.
"What's that?" the host lobbed the softball.
"Well, we won't have to see no more of them Aubren flags on the cars. I hadn't seen one since Saturday, heh, heh, heh."
The host, stirring the pot, chuckled along and launched a diatribe about the bandwagon nature of Auburn fans.
Granted the radio show in question caters to the absolute bottom of the barrel, the most crass, the least educated and worst mannered fragments of the respective Auburn and Alabama fanbases, but the caller's complete and total ignorance of the irony of his assertion is worth examination.
After a recent move from a town neighboring Tuscaloosa to another about four hours away, one of the primary benefits was escaping the cloying presence of Bama fans who made up the vast majority.
The difference was readily apparent. A car sporting a flag or magnet in the new locale was just as likely to support Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss or Tennessee as it was to pay homage to the Tide.
For a family that had been drowning in Crimson for years, it was a breath of fresh air.
All that changed about four weeks into the 2008 season. Where once you might have seen one or two Bama-bedecked vehicles, suddenly there were four or five.
By the end of the regular season, the number of Tide-tricked autos had multiplied like drunken tribbles.
At a redlight across from a South Alabama shopping mall in December, there were 37 easily observable pieces of Bama flair winking from the vehicles waiting on the change.
The mall parking lot looked like a houndstooth mushroom field, with flags popping up from car after car.
Fast foward to the Monday after the SEC Championship loss to Florida. Same redlight. Same approximate time. A solitary tattered Bama flag fluttered limply from the window of a truck. The remainder of the flags, magnets and stickers had been stored away.
The mall parking lot, still packed with Christmas shoppers, had seemingly been mowed. Where hundreds of flags once sprouted, not a single car flag was visible. It was like the flag rapture had come in the night.
There's no doubt that some chagrined Auburn fans stowed away their Tiger flags after the Kentucky Wildcats reduced the team to rubble, but that's hardly an Auburn-exclusive phenomenon.
How do you know when Alabama's winning? You can smell the mothballs in the air.
There is no greater rivalry in college football than that between Auburn and Alabama. None can match the passion, the sheer unadulterated hate, the rancor and ferocity the Tigers and Tide share. The only rivalry in all of sport that comes close is the ongoing feud between baseball's New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
What both Tiger and Tide fans miss, however, is that in reality their fanbases are not significantly dissimilar. They come from the same towns, shop in the same stores, go to the same schools, work shoulder to shoulder and (too often) intermarry.
Each group of fans earnestly believes it has moral superiority, that its fans are just a bit better than that other rabble. And they trust with all their hearts that the rest of the nation sees things exactly as they do.
Each has its claim to gridiron glory.
The Tide proudly tout twelve national championships.
Auburn fans scoff at the number, pointing out the dubious nature of most of the so-called titles. It's a valid argument. How can the Tide expect to be taken seriously when it claims a title in 1941, a year the team finished with two losses, was third in the SEC and ranked 20th in the AP poll?
Auburn takes the moral high ground noting that the Tigers could claim seven titles if they counted in the same manner as their rivals, but Auburn acknowledges just one.
The Tigers grandly point to a pair of Heisman Trophy winners in Bo Jackson (1985) and Pat Sullivan (1971).
Alabama fans snort, insisting that football is a team game and that 21 SEC titles trump any number of Heismans. Again, a valid argument. But don't kid yourself. Bama fans would love to have a Heisman winner to put in the books. It's why they foolishly try to argue that Shaun Alexander, a fine tailback, was on par with Auburn's Jackson, one of the greatest players in the history of the game. It's like comparing the Taco Bell Chihuahua to Cujo.
When you examine the two fanbases, however, you do find cultural differences.
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