After 13 long years, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University are back where they belong: doing battle on Saturday.
Yes, the Longhorns and Aggies are playing football again.
The ancient in-state enemies are set to play, finally, at Kyle Field this weekend in College Station. It’s an important game. Texas is ranked No. 3 in the country, and A&M is coming off a heartbreaking overtime loss to Auburn University. They’re clearly itching to spoil the Longhorns’ championship hopes.
“The disdain is palpable,” said Matt Guzman, an Aggies columnist for Sports Illustrated.
Needless to say, interest is high.
By Monday, tickets had hit historic highs, making it the most expensive regular season football ticket in the history of college football or the NFL. At one point, a group of up to eight tickets was listed for resale at $7,428 each on SeatGeek. Over the weekend, the median ticket price on StubHub had exceeded $2,000.
This points to an immutable truth of athletics: Hatred is big bucks.
“Rivalries are the lifeblood of sports,” said legendary Texas sportswriter Kirk Bohls of the Houston Chronicle, who called UT vs. A&M one of the top 10 rivalries in college football.
It’s a much-anticipated return for fans on both sides who have missed the annual game, which began in 1894 and was held every year consecutively from 1915 to 2011.
And the lack of a game in recent years was a noticeable void, considering both schools’ long-standing hatred of the other.
“Each school has each other mentioned in their fight songs; it’s a bit awkward that they haven’t played each other,” said Leah Vann, a sports culture reporter for Chron.com.
Here’s the beef in a nutshell: The two schools are natural opposites, with Texas representing Austin’s liberalism versus A&M’s cherished rural and military roots.
“It’s arguable that the Aggies concern themselves over the Longhorns much more than the Longhorns do the Aggies, but there isn’t any denying that it’s a true-blood rivalry,” Guzman said. “In its heyday, it was what decided control, who got to wear the King of Texas hat for the year and gave both sides something to look forward to.”
I grew up in A&M-friendly Wichita Falls. My dog’s veterinarian had a sign in his office: “No Aggie joaks.” UT was viewed as Sodom and Gomorrah on a good day.
Here’s how I see it: Aggies and Longhorns are like brothers. One voted for Trump and would instantly have your back in a fight. The other sat out the election and really wants to move to New York.
“It’s both a family affair and a clash of vastly different cultures in the state,” Vann said. “To use an analogy, it’s oil & gas vs. renewable energy — the two have this common ground to power our state or nation, but are coming at it from different angles.”
And, after all, what fun is college football without an enemy?
“A lot of the Aggies’ culture has revolved around the idea of trumping Texas, but without that game being played every year, it’s made the rivalry seem more like an old tale,” Guzman told The Barbed Wire.
The last time the two played was Nov. 24, 2011; UT won 27–25 on a last-second field goal. After that, A&M left the Big 12 Conference for the more illustrious Southeastern Conference, and the rivalry was put on hold.
Since then, there have been attempts to rekindle things. In 2013, state Rep. Ryan Guillen filed a bill to force the two schools to play a game every year. But it went nowhere.
The subject “became a bipartisan issue in the Texas Legislature, as multiple lawmakers have tried their own ways of bringing it back — because, if you think about it, unlike Texas-Oklahoma, it brings a lot of revenue to the state’s top institutions,” Vann said.
Polls taken at both schools over the past decade showed overwhelming support on both sides to restart the series.
Now that the ceasefire is over, Texans of all stripes have rushed to enlist. In College Station, people began camping out in droves once student tickets became available. “Even in the rain,” Guzman said.
Each school has had its ups and downs over the last 13 years. Texas dominated the mid-to-late 2000s, with a national championship in 2005 and another title game appearance in 2009. Since then, it’s been a bumpy ride. But the last few years have seen the Longhorns return to prominence, with an appearance in last season’s College Football Playoff and another strong season this year.
A&M, meanwhile, enjoyed a high around 2013, thanks to its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel. But things were rough the last several years under head coach Jimbo Fisher, who A&M fired last year despite the fact that it cost the school more than $75 million to buy out his contract.
There were also some school politics involved in Texas joining the SEC — a move that A&M leaders were decidedly against.
In 2021, as speculation brewed that Texas and the University of Oklahoma were preparing to jump ship from the Big 12 Conference, A&M athletic director Ross Bjork was not amused.
“We want to be the only SEC program in the state of Texas,” Bjork said at the time. “There’s a reason why Texas A&M left the Big 12 — to be standalone, to have our own identity.”
But you can’t stop money in college football. A&M ultimately (and probably reluctantly) joined other SEC schools in approving the new members. Gleeful Texas fans poked fun at A&M’s sullenness in a parody video.
So while the rivalry is back, there may be some sore feelings. Naturally. “I think A&M also wanted to be the only SEC program in the state, but either way you point fingers, I still think the two schools know it’s better to play the rivalry than to not,” Vann said
And football-wise, it’s an interesting matchup.
“There’s potential for the game between the Aggies and Longhorns to decide who will punch their ticket to the SEC Championship game, so there are major implications there that elevate the matchup,” Guzman said. “Beyond that, there’s perhaps a sense that Texas A&M wants to prove that it’s been in the SEC the longest, and therefore has rights to it.”
He added: “The Longhorns, on the other hand, have had a stellar season in the new conference, and would certainly like to give their rivals another ‘punch in the mouth’ by beating them on their own turf.”
The fact that the game occurs during Thanksgiving weekend is a big part of the dynamic, too. It’s a time when families get together and loyalties may be divided. (If you think getting together with your Trump-loving relatives will be awkward this week, that’s nothing compared to a mixed UT/A&M household.)
“Historically the only teams that have played on Thanksgiving in the state are Texas, Texas A&M and the Dallas Cowboys,” Vann said. “So, Thanksgiving in Texas revolves around football.”
Above all, the game is about something more important than championships: bragging rights.
“They’re separated by 100 miles and a century of hate,” Bohls said. “Children grow up in Texas loving one side and hating the other. It’s their birthright.”
I thought about the upcoming game a few days ago, while visiting Austin’s downtown library.
Getting off the elevator, I saw a guy in his 20s wearing an A&M polo, jeans, and worn-out boots. He was slouched in a chair, one leg dangling over the arm.
He seemed out of place. Probably his first time in a library. (Boom! Take that Aggies!)
See y’all Saturday.