In the last decade, we’ve become very politically correct, most of which has not been without good reason. Between your inappropriate tweeterers and your duck’s dynasties, much emphasis has been placed on love and acceptance.

However, love and acceptance is precisely the disease that is infecting and killing college football.

I recently had a conversation with a complete stranger who, through said conversing, discovered that I graduated from The University of Alabama. He, being a college football fan, asked what many have asked me since that day of infamy on November 30, 2013:

“Are you going to cheer for Auburn in the BCS National Championship?”

A lot of Alabama fans find themselves pondering this very question. Do you cheer for your rival to keep the title not only in the conference, but in the state as well? Or do you risk the SEC’s dominance coming to an end by cheering for Florida State. Many consider this a moral dilemma.

Many. But not me.

“I hope the Auburn Tigers lose 10,000 to ZERO”, I told him. He was baffled. He couldn’t understand how you could cheer against your own conference. It’s very simple.

It’s a rivalry.

That word has seemed to lose its meaning to people in recent years. In a true rivalry, you want everything good to happen for your team and nothing but the worst for the other one. If they are going to win one game, I want them to win every single game until they play us so they have farther to fall when we knock them down (like they did to us, but I don’t want to talk about it).

Now, some will say that this rivalry has taken a turn for the worse recently with Harvey Updyke poisoning the Toomer’s trees, and I would agree with you. There are healthy and unhealthy ways for the rivalry spirit to manifest itself. Unhealthy would be killing trees or wanting to see someone injured. Healthy would be wanting to see their dreams shattered.

I can’t grasp how people that are Alabama fans can cheer for Auburn in good conscience. I just don’t get it. It is our duty as rivals to put all our collective focus into willing Auburn to lose. As much as some Auburn fans may deny it, they absolutely don’t cheer for Alabama in any capacity, and I would expect nothing less from them. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m expected to wish them the best just because they’re in our conference? Is that a joke?

If the Joker were off fighting Superman, do you think Batman would cheer for Joker just because they’re from the same city?

NO.

Much like Batman and the Joker, we were made to fight each other. It’s what we were put here to do. That’s what makes this a great sports rivalry. The unfortunate part of it all is that we have to live with each other 24/7/365. That’s what makes this the greatest rivalry in all of sports.

Can you imagine what it would be like if Bruce Wayne and the Joker were roommates at the end of the day? I think they’d be lucky if the worst to happen was Bruce Wayne poisoning Joker’s rubber tree plant.

So, would I rather see Auburn lose the title and thus have the SEC’s streak slip away as well?

Are you kidding me? To be able to blame Auburn for that? That’s like having a terrible Christmas as a kid and being able to blame your stepdad Rick because THINGS WERE GREAT UNTIL YOU CAME ALONG, RICK.

You know why the term “friendly rivalry” exists? Because true rivalries are inherently not. Alabama/Auburn is not like a big brother/little brother rivalry, because at the end of the day, brothers still love each other.

It’s more like the Hatfield and McCoys, the Capulets and Montagues, or Coke and Pepsi, because Coke is red and Pepsi is blue and Coke is clearly better. It’s like we, in the state of Alabama, have harnessed the volatile relationship of the Middle East and channeled it into one day at the end of November.

Perhaps the solution to peace in the Middle East is that simple. Just give them football.

Look, I don’t hate Auburn University. Actually, my love for The University of Alabama as a whole far exceeds my hate for Auburn. There’s a lot of good people that have come out of Auburn like… I dunno, my brother in law, I guess? Academically, Auburn is a perfectly good safety school. I just hate them athletically.

So, no. Come January 6, I will not be chanting “SEC, SEC, SEC”. I will instead be yelling:

‘Nole Tide ‘Nole!