To the quarterback who will be at the center of the nation's attention Saturday in the annual Iron Bowl, it's just another game.
Yet for his girlfriend in the bleachers, there is plenty to be nervous about.
Supermodel Katherine Webb, girlfriend to Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron, is an Auburn graduate. And although she attended the school, Saturday will be her first experience witnessing the rivalry first-hand.
"I'm not nervous about the fans," Webb told USA Today Sports. "Of course I want to see AJ have that fourth championship ring, so I really want them to do well. That's what I'm nervous about. I'm not nervous about his talent or abilities as a player. Of course, I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about the outcome."
Webb said she didn't attend the game when she was a student at AU because she always needed the cash she could get from selling her tickets.
McCarron, meanwhile, will have the brighest of spotlights on his game. Along with trying to extend Alabama's hopes for a BCS national championship, he is garnering some late-season momentum for the Heisman Trophy and will face one of the most hostile crowds he has ever dealt with.
But nerves are for Webb. McCarron's, by all accounts, are made of steel.
"I've played in two national championships in a row," McCarron said, "so it's just another game."
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Indeed, McCarron has more big-game experience to draw on than any quarterback in the nation: The aforementioned two BCS national championship games, two Iron Bowl starts, an SEC title game start, and enough clashes with the likes of LSU, Texas A&M and other top SEC teams to produce as seasoned a college passer as one can be.
His only concern? According to Webb, how she'll be treated by the fans she once went to school with.
"AJ just in his protective nature, we talked about it (Wednesday) night," she said. "And he was like, 'I'm concerned. I don't know what the fans are gonna do.' And I'm like, 'It's OK. I'll be sweet, genuine and nice like I always am if anything were to happen.' Even in my experience at Auburn, it's been very, very rare to see fans that have been rude or anything like that."
*Follow Chase Goodbread on Twitter **@ChaseGoodbread.*
