Because it's your duty as a good Rebel. That's why.
Somehow though, that won't suffice for many of you. That's fine. Y'all hate LSU. But let's talk about me for a minute here.
I hate Mississippi State. I hate the institution, fans, football team, coaches, stadium, and town.
I hate the color Maroon. It's like Crimson and Purple had a sinful love child and neglected to raise it into anything worth a damn.
I hate Jackie Sherrill and I hate Sylvester Croom. Right now, I'm getting pretty damn close to hating Dan Mullen.
I hate cowbells and I hate "Hail State."
Yes, the hatred is strong in me. But why is this? Is it that they are our in-state rivals and every time we square off in any sport it is for Magnolia State superiority? Sure. Is it that they are our--"our" referring to a liberal arts school--antithesis as an agricultural and mechanical school; the yeoman ying to our gentry yang? A little bit.
But really, it's the bizarre, delusional obsession they have with Ole Miss. Seemingly everything State does is somehow in reaction to or a subtle jab at something we Rebels have done. To them, everything we do is either inferior to what they do or purely nefariously motivated.
- "Yeah, y'all may have the right field student section but we've got the Left Field Lounge, bitches. [RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE]"
- "Well everybody knows the Tuohys got bored one day and decided to comb the ghettos of Memphis so they could find them a big burly black man to enroll in Ole Miss, groom him into a star lineman, and make an NFL starter out of him because they feel guilty for being rich and white AND they're greedy Old Piss fans."
- "Check out our high-def board, bitch. [RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE] It's a whole foot wider than Ole Myth's! We designed it that way on purpose to stick it to 'em!"
- "We drive tractors, they sue people."
Go ahead and keep driving your tractors. Our society thanks you for the calories, agriculturists. However, taking contention with someone because "they're all book learned and read up on the law and practice in civil proceedings and other shit" is sad. Ragging on us for allowing--under the understanding that all forms of speech are allowed on the Ole Miss campus--the Ku Klux Klan to hold a 10-minute "rally" is also sad. Trying to turn that back around on us and somehow make us racists because of that is double sad. Using your basketball program's lone final-four appearance to convince yourselves that you've become the basketball power of the SEC West is sad. Somehow convincing yourselves that Starkville isn't the single worst college town in the SEC is sad. But, most importantly, defining your entire existence and modus operandi on downplaying, disproving, and denigrating Ole Miss is horribly sad.
Some would simply file this under "annoying," but I cannot. It permeates me. It causes me to wince angrily every time I make the mistake of pulling into Starkville (a mistake which WW and I will be making tonight, holla). It causes me to curse and throw and generally live up to the "spoiled jackass" Rebel stereotype whenever surrounded by the bell wielding faithful. Concisely, this is the game of the year for me in every Rebel sport.
As Michael Lewis wrote, Mississippi State is "an insurrection to be put down." I will be doing my part tomorrow. Join me, will ya?
*Hell, Mississippi State pulling any kind of "Ole Miss is racist" shit on us isn't just sad, it's preposterous when considering that Ole Miss and Mississippi State have nearly identical rates of minority enrollment (tops in the SEC) and the fact that Ole Miss integrated a few years before State did.