Answer: Believe it or not, it's the Missouri -- Kansas rivalry.

Notre Dame vs. Southern Cal., Alabama vs. Auburn, Texas vs. Oklahoma, Cardinals vs. Cubs, Dodgers vs. Giants, Cowboys vs. Redskins. All mere backyard scuffles.

You have to have some bloodshed before rivalries get serious. The Hatfields and McCoys didn't really start hating each other until the feud meant digging holes for family members.

"The song has ended, but the melody lingers on." Great song lyrics for the end of a love affair. No love lost, however, for Kansans and Missourians. It was a hatred that lingered on -- festering, gradually subsiding, but always there -- and finally culminating in a yearly football game.

Football games today between Missouri and Kansas involves no rifle fire across the field. Fraternity brothers from the opposing schools don't conduct cavalry raids against each other to see how many people they can kill.

There was a time, however, when the two states had just that sort of warfare. Lots of people got killed, and a bitter hatred developed.

The Kansas vs. Missouri game today has Mizzou fans yelling "Bring on the team named after scum!" The scum they are referring are the "Jayhawkers," a historical reference to Kansans intent on murdering Missourians.

It was no one-sided affair. Both states had their share of scumbags.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation ended all disputes on slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, legislated before the Civil War, became the catalyst for future hostilities. This Act provided that new states coming into the Union would be free, or slave, based on popular sovereignty. This meant the type of settlers coming into a state would be of major importance.

It brought about a cold war, that quickly got hot!

Missouri had only one family in eight owning slaves. However, the pro-slavery group was highly effective in their appeal and recruitment of settlers with southern sentiment. Kansas, on the other hand, had a band of fire-eating abolitionists who considered slavery an abomination on this earth. They sought out settlers sharing their avid beliefs.

Righteous indignation is a dangerous tool in the hands of fanatics. (Witness Islamic Jihad.) Militant Kansans -- waving the banner of abolition -- stormed across the Missouri border to destroy property and kill suspected slave owners.

Missouri retaliated with guerrilla sorties of their own. Missourians felt that Kansas aggression over the slave issue was a facade to masquerade their real purpose, which was to plunder rich Missouri resources.

One characteristic of these violent clashes was that disorganized, or guerrilla tactics, often have great appeal to opportunists of the criminal element.

The infamous Quantrill raiders included among their members the James brothers, Frank and Jesse. They were involved in a number of border shoot-outs. Post Civil War found Jesse and Frank terrorizing the Midwest in a series of bank hold-ups, train robberies, and murders. (Hollywood fantasy made these two Robin Hood heroes.) Jesse ended up with a hole in his back from a gun fired by, "The Dirty Little Coward," Bob Ford. Frank James was eventually pardoned, and started the horse races one year at the Caruthersville, Mo. fair.

It goes without saying that this is a simplistic overview of the violent disputes that took place in Missouri and Kansas in the period of time just before the Civil War. And it may be stretching the meaning drastically to say this anger has carried over into something as harmless as a football game. But at least there's a history behind the Missouri-Kansas game, and not just the normal hoop-la.

The large area of land between the schools of Notre Dame and Southern California has no particular military importance except a number of Indian Wars, with neither school participating. Their football game is for national prestige only. Alabama and Auburn clash shoulder pads for state's bragging rights.

When Kansas and Missouri play each other in their next football game, the kids facing each other across the line will want to win, of course. They will also be caught up in an atavistic manifestation that has passed on from one generation to the other in pure hatred.

The Answer Man will appear on occasion in the Daily Dunklin Democrat, and will provide answers to various and sundry questions about local people, etc. Readers are invited to submit their queries to The Answer Man by e-mailing them to bhunt@dddnews.com.