Because no other fan base, save perhaps for that of Texas A&M, concerns itself more with the qualities, successes, and shortcomings of their instate rival. Because, speaking of Texas A&M, maroon is the premature, incestuous offspring of purple and crimson. Because, without the identity and subculture that is Ole Miss, the same of Mississippi State wouldn't exist; this is akin to the fashion that, without your brain, that debilitating tumor you're going to need a lobotomy for in 45 years wouldn't exist. Because their fans get their feelings hurt when we dare call LSU a principal rival of ours before turning around and giddily calling us "obsessed" when we decide to focus our HATE on them. Because Mississippi State has nothing worthy of note of their own - clangity farm equipment welded to a bicycle handle aside - forcing to define themselves in terms of Ole Miss, as the "anti-Ole Miss." Because they're the dark to our light, the anti-matter to our matter, the cold to our heat. Because Ole Miss admitted women 48 years before Mississippi State and minorities three years before Mississippi State, yet they insist that they're the "people's university." Because "the people's university" sounds like something you'd see printed on a banner draped over a school in 1950's Stalingrad. Because veterinary medicine isn't real medicine; if a human being breaks his or her leg, the doctors and students at UMC don't tend to put a twelve-gauge to his or her forehead. Because they drive tractors and we sue people.
Because it's what we were born to do. HATE STATE.