That's a good article but there's another psychological element to it as well: Auburn fans adopt the posture that so many fans so in other sports like the NFL. The reasoning goes like this: anybody can be a bandwagon fan and pull for the Dallas Cowboys/Pittsburgh Steelers/New England Patriots but it takes REAL fans to support perennial losers like the Jets.I read an article the other day written by a young man who grew up in an Auburn family (3 generations of Auburn grads). He later went to college at USCe. It was an interesting read. It offers the perspective of the other side of this type of rivalry, twice over. Reading it, I can understand why they celebrate their wins over their rivals with such passion, and I can understand why they would view their rivals as arrogant.
http://www.garnetandblackattack.com/2017/1/19/14328404/my-personal-sports-hell-the-clemson-alabama-national-championship-conundrum
So they sorta assume that most Alabama fans have adopted the team BECAUSE they were big winners back in the day. Of course, there's a more sociological element to it as well - Alabama just did not have a whole lot to boast about as a state back in the early 1960s at least at the national level. We had a nationally known chief executive (of the state) for all the wrong reasons and the state wasn't known for much else. Some folks no doubt latched onto the ball team as a way of finding some sort of state pride in accomplishment. But the assumption is the old "anybody can pull for a winner but it takes a REAL fan to pull for a team that only shows up in the national picture about every ten years." Thus, there IS a 'we're the real fans' mentality as well. That's where the whole "most Alabama fans didn't go to school there" came from.
Does anyone seriously think most Notre Dame fans (back when they were a big deal) have ever even been on the campus of Notre Dame much less attended there? Now it's TRUE that an Auburn fan is far more likely to have gone to school there.
But so what?