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FOOTBALL

What Walmart taught Alabama football's Bryce Young, Will Anderson Jr. about the Iron Bowl

Nick Kelly
The Tuscaloosa News

Turns out a trip to Walmart can be quite educational in historic college football rivalries. 

Alabama football quarterback Bryce Young (California) and linebacker Will Anderson Jr. (Georgia) didn't grow up in the state. So, they didn't have a full appreciation for the Iron Bowl until they arrived in Tuscaloosa. 

More specifically, until they arrived at the Tuscaloosa Walmart. 

Soon after he arrived in town, Young saw a man in full Auburn attire at the store. 

"You could tell everyone was looking at him weird and people were giving him dirty looks," Young said. "Seeing that kind of showed me how much it meant as a community and a state how big this rivalry is." 

Seeing only one Auburn fan, and the general reaction, was different than back home in California. Where he grew up, Young saw plenty of fans in both USC and UCLA attire. 

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"The Iron Bowl has always been a staple of college football for a while," Young said. "Me even being from California and not being in the South, still, I'd always known about it and always heard about it. It's always something that has been talked about nationally. So it's something I was well aware of." 

But the trip to Walmart helped provide true understanding. 

Anderson can say the same. He didn't know as much about football in the state before moving from Georgia, but then he saw how small the Auburn clothing section was at Walmart. 

"It's like one shirt," Anderson said. "I said, 'Oh yeah. This is serious.'"

The rest of the clothing rack? Alabama attire. 

"They don't play when it comes to the Iron Bowl," Anderson said. 

No. 2 Alabama (10-1, 6-1 SEC) will face Auburn (6-5, 3-4) at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. The game will be broadcast on CBS.