Iron Bowl allegiances are playing a part in Alabama politics. Again.

It’s not just the distinction between Democratic and Republican that helps decide an election in the state of Alabama. Football allegiance can play a pretty big role in the way candidates are perceived by the public. According to a story from Politico, that’s what’s happening with Jeff Sessions’ vacant U.S Senate seat.

The seat is soon to be up for grabs in a special election. Luther Strange (Sessions’ appointed replacement) is one of many people entered in the race, and he’s an Alabama fan. That means that Strange, a Birmingham native, has got an interesting money hurdle to clear.

Though almost a dozen Republicans filed to run in the Republican primary and nearly that number signed up on the Democratic side, the biggest threat to Strange’s bid is a burly man whose love of Auburn football is matched only by his grudge against Strange, who draws support from University of Alabama territory.

Jimmy Rane is the chairman and CEO of the Great Southern Wood Preserving lumber company, whose signature product—YellaWood pressure-treated pine—is known to homebuilders everywhere.

Costing Strange the Senate seat would be a means of payback for Rane, an Auburn board of trustees member, because the former dragged the latter into a 2016 corruption trial.

You’ve almost certainly seen Rane on a billboard, if you’re from the South or you’re familiar with his interesting marketing campaign that includes the Yella Fella.

The state’s government has been involved with the rivalry like when the teams didn’t play between 1907 and 1949 even though the legislature made repeated attempts to force them to.

In the present day, Alabama state politics has been quite the roller coaster. Three of the state’s last six governors have faced criminal charges, including the most recent one, Robert Bentley. Bentley got caught up in a sex scandal with an aide and used public funds to cover it up. Bentley resigned in disgrace from office and plead guilty to two misdemeanors.

But the race to replace Bentley also had a distinctive college football flavor when former Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville considered throwing his hat in the ring.

Public officials were found to be finessing Iron Bowl tickets for face value, and two made a bet to wear the rivals’ hat on the floor of the legislature depending on the game’s outcome. A state senator even introduced a resolution to get Auburn to claim more national championships.

Well, everybody took this in good fun, and we sent that resolution to the Rules Committee ... and that’s probably where it will stay. Some Alabama fans put it there, and I told them, “I don’t know if you want to get into the merits of that 1939 Betty Crocker National Championship, but I will tell you this. It only takes a second to change the world!”

No matter what you do, the rivalry will be interwoven in just about every part of life in Alabama.