Auburn senior wide receiver Eli Stove grew up cheering for Alabama, just like his dad and brother Jon. His mom, Felicia, grew up cheering for Auburn, an allegiance that stuck. When the “Kick 6” happened in 2013, the Stove household reaction ranged from agony to ecstasy, depending on what room you were in.

When Eli elected to play college football at Auburn 3 years later, all that changed. The entire family had to hit the stop button on their rivalry allegiances, which run so deep in the state of Alabama they often divide households just like the Stove family. That discord and division has been the case since the state’s oldest university (Alabama) met the agricultural land grant university in football for the first time, all the way back in 1893.

Roll Tide. War Eagle.

It’s a rivalry so heated, the schools’ trustees almost went to blows over $34 of per diem expenses and choice of appropriate game officials back in 1908. That dispute ended with so much acrimony, the programs didn’t play one another for 41 years. When they finally teed it up again, in 1948, it was only because the Alabama legislature made it clear they would cut funding to the schools if they continued to dodge one another. Begrudgingly, legislators from both schools met, and a hatchet was buried in a Birmingham park. The game would remain in Birmingham for 41 more years, and its location in that city, which was at one time a hub of iron and ore mining activity, led Shug Jordan to dub the game “the Iron Bowl.” By the 1980s, Auburn had grown tired of playing 45 minutes from Tuscaloosa, and Pat Dye’s dream of playing the game at Jordan-Hare Stadium was finally realized when the contract to play at Birmingham’s Legion Field ran out, in 1988.

Of course, you already know about this if you are a fan of either side.

Roll Tide, War Eagle.

A rivalry so passionate, it brings out the worst in folks. Like when Alabama fan and certified lunatic Harvey Updyke poisoned the trees at Toomer’s Corner, a cardinal sin according to Auburn people of faith and, well, an affront to human dignity everywhere.

The rivalry brings out the best out in people, too, it should be said. I think, once we get past that little wack-a-doodle piece of all of us, we remember that football is something that tends to unite us. When tornadoes decimated the state in April 2011, it was players and alumni from both sides who came together to spearhead tornado recovery. Auburn legend Bo Jackson was among those who made the trip for a Rivals United for Relief game that raised thousands upon thousands of dollars for tornado victims and families, regardless of allegiance.

Roll Tide, War Eagle. The kind of rivalry where if you win 6 in a row as the head coach from one team, you can eventually become a United States Senator, like Tommy Tuberville did earlier this month.

In the Nick Saban era, there have been no such streaks for Auburn.

The Tigers have beaten Saban 5 times, more than any other SEC team by some distance. But they haven’t ever won 2 in a row, which they’ll try to do Saturday in Tuscaloosa (3:30 p.m. ET, CBS). Since the graduation of Auburn’s 2008 senior class, no Auburn senior class has graduated with a winning record against the Crimson Tide. The 2009 Auburn seniors may have had some 5th-year seniors who went 3-2, but collectively, 2-2 vs. Alabama is all they could manage.

That could all change Saturday afternoon. Auburn’s current crop of seniors, which includes the wildly underrated Stove and other veterans like defensive linemen Big Kat Bryant and Tyrone Truesdell, has the chance to finish 3-1 vs. Saban and Alabama.

They began their careers with a 26-14 win over the Crimson Tide that saw Alabama dominated in a way they really haven’t been often in the Saban era. The Tide took their revenge a season later, but last year, Auburn won a thrilling shootout against Mac Jones and the Tide 48-45 on the Plains.

Of course, Auburn hasn’t won on the Capstone since the “Camback” in 2010, a span of futility that will touch a decade with a loss on Saturday. Even that win, with the transcendent talent Cam Newton, wasn’t easy. Games don’t typically get nicknames if they are walks in the park, and if you watched it, the “Camback” is probably one of the best 5 games you’ve ever seen live, whether you’re a Roll Tide or a War Eagle.

Auburn has lost their past 4 trips to Bryant-Denny Stadium by an average of 27 points, and even if you remove a 49-0 defeat in 2012, the Tigers have lost the past 3 by an average of 20 points.

Still, Auburn’s seniors know how to win this game. They’ve done it twice, and their head coach, Gus Malzahn, has had more success against Saban than any coach in America. Auburn quarterback Bo Nix, who has won this game once already against almost this identical Alabama defense, is coming off his best 3 games of the season in which he completed 73 percent of his passes and threw for 252 yards per game with 5 touchdowns and only 1 interception. And while Tank Bigbsy’s status for his first Iron Bowl is uncertain, the game is full of lore about players who toughed it out and came up huge on one of college football’s grandest stages.

It’s hard to explain what an Auburn senior class finishing with a winning record against Saban’s Alabama would actually mean. Would it vindicate the perpetually-under-fire Malzahn if, for all the grief he receives, he manages to do the one thing that’s supremely important to football fans in the state of Alabama? Would it suggest chinks in the armor of Saban’s dynasty, with Alabama’s seniors becoming the first set with a losing record against, well, anyone in the Saban era? Would it mean very little, as Alabama fans would likely say in their moments of insecurity, insisting that while the Iron Bowl is important, winning national championship number 3,451 will always matter more? The answer to the “what it means” question probably depends on who does the answering.

Malzahn was asked about it Monday. He demurred.

“It’s the same old story,” Malzahn said. “They are one of the best teams in the country like they always are. You’ve got to play really well to beat them. Our guys understand that.”

That’s a bit of a different take than Stove had.

“We’re excited about it. We have a lot of explosive players. We’ve had success. They’ve had success. It’s an amazing opportunity to finish with a winning record against Alabama. We’ll be ready for it.”