Upon his arrival at Auburn, Bo Nix didn’t need any history lessons on the importance of winning the Iron Bowl.

Long before he was a touted high school prospect, Nix was just a fan of Auburn following his family’s proud history at the school.

Now Nix is charged with being the leader of Auburn’s offense tasked with delivering wins to the program in the Iron Bowl. After starting his college career with a 1-0 record in the Iron Bowl, Nix was asked to share his thoughts on how important of a game this is leading up to his second meeting against Alabama.

“You play as hard as you’ve ever played in a game in your entire life just because of how much it means,” Nix said on Tuesday. “Obviously, there’s a lot of kids going to school on Monday that are gonna have to put up with a lot of crap – whichever way it goes.

“And so, as an Auburn fan growing up that way, several times at school you go and there’s a lot of people talking and a lot of people who obviously aren’t even close to associated with the school that are wearing an Alabama shirt just because they bought at the store. That’s kind of stuff that you got to put up with. Most people don’t understand that.

While Nix, along with nearly all other Alabama natives, are raised to pick a side in the rivalry, the Auburn quarterback said that players that arrive from out of state quickly learn about the seriousness of the Iron Bowl.

“I mean, there’s a lot of people that do come in from out of state and just come to play football at Auburn, Alabama and just come because of the program and what it means,” Nix continued. “Then when they get tossed in the rivalry, their eyes are opened and they kind of see what it’s all about.

“And so it’s definitely a huge rivalry the biggest in college football and probably one of the biggest in sports, just period. Obviously, you just got to play extremely hard and refuse to lose.”