Rivalry Week: Texas-Texas A&M

On Thanksgiving night, Texas and Texas A&M will battle it out at Kyle Field. While both schools have had disappointing seasons, this match up is going to have a great deal of symbolic importance. As long as the rivalry has gone on, the annual game is ending after this year as the Aggies move to the Southeastern Conference. This is the fallout of the current climate in college sports. The name of the game is money, and conference alignment has been driven by its pursuit.

So after the 117th meeting on Thursday, the two will part ways, at least for the immediate future. It's funny that this rivalry is the first of the week, with all the talk about hate and competition, because this rivalry seems, for the most part, respectful and friendly. Like Thanksgiving, it's an affair of family, friends, and neighbors.

The rivalry between the two schools is given credence in the two schools' fight songs:

Since the 1920s, we Texas A&M fans have sung “Goodbye to Texas University/So long to the orange and white” and swayed from end zone to end zone as we “sawed” the horns off the University of Texas. And since about the ’30s, Longhorns fans have countered with “Texas fight, Texas fight/And it’s goodbye to A&M.”

The competition was, at one time, a one sided affair. This was, in large part, because of the mandatory Corp of Cadets program at Texas A&M until 1965. While Texas has a large overall lead of 75-36-5, in the last 36 meetings, each team has taken 18 victories. Competitively, this game has become a more even affair, while each side has had its runs of dominance.

Furthermore, there are many other traditions that have been spurred by this rivalry. Texas A&M has its bonfire:

From its inception as a scrap heap to the more familiar and impressive stack of vertical logs, the Texas Aggie Bonfire symbolized every Aggie's "burning desire" to beat the University of Texas in football. Attracting between 30,000 and 70,000 people each year to watch it burn, Bonfire became a symbol of the deep and unique camaraderie that is the Aggie Spirit. 

In preparation for the much-anticipated annual football game against "t.u.", as Aggies refer to their rival, the student-built Texas Aggie Bonfire would burn after Yell Practice. The lighting ceremony included the playing of "The Spirit of Aggieland" by the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band and the traditional reading of "The Last Corps Trip" poem. An outhouse, known as the "t.u. tea room" or "t.u. frat house" was built by sophomores in the Aggie band and sat atop the completed Bonfire. Aggie lore has it that if the Bonfire stood until after midnight, they would win the game.

And Texas has the Hex Rally:

On Thanksgiving Day 1941, he University of Texas football team was to travel to College Station to take on Texas A&M. The Aggies were having a banner season. Undefeated and ranked second in the nation by the Associated Press, the A&M had already won the Southwest Conference Championship. They also had a jinx on the Longhorns. 

Since 1923 - for 18 years - the Longhorns had been unable to win a game at Kyle Field. Desperate to break the College Station "jinx," UT students consulted Madam Agusta Hipple, a local fortune teller. She instructed the students to burn red candles the week before the game as a way of "hexing" the Aggies and putting a stop to the jinx. 

Throughout the week of Thanksgiving, Austin shops found it difficult to keep red candles in stock. Candles were burned in store windows along the Drag, in the fraternity and sorority houses of west campus, in the lounges of University residence halls, and in the windows of houses in Austin neighborhoods. Madam Hipple knew what she was doing. By uniting the football team and its fans with such a visible show of support, how could the Longhorns fail?

These traditions that have been built as a result of this game has become an integral part of these communities. It sounds like it could be volatile, but it isn't. If it was, would Texas fans let the Corps of Cadets do this:

 

This is rivalry, but this is respect. This is something that should be preserved forever because it's such a big part of the schools' tradition and values. That's what a rival does; it makes you think about why you love your school. Without that, you're not whole. I think Longhorns and Aggies are starting to realize that. Dave Thomas, a '93 A&M graduate, had this to say:

It's true I don't care for their sense of entitlement. I often take quiet delight in their struggles. And I enjoy beating them when it happens. But I don't hate the Longhorns. 

In fact, I'm going to miss them.

He goes on to say:

But I know the history of the series. There's been a hell of a lot more "next years" than beating "the hell out of t.u." I won't say that I'm OK with that, but I'm at peace with that. The rivalry with Texas has colored my whole appreciation for sports, giving me a deep affection for the underdog and a disdain for the Yankees and the Lakers of the world.

Texas' Heisman Trophy winner, Earl Campbell, said this about the end of the rivalry:

"It's one of the saddest stories in college athletics. For so many years, that's what we in Texas looked forward to every Thanksgiving. You had your turkey dinner, you gave thanks to God for being here on Thanksgiving and trying to be happy, and then you finish it up with the football game. " 

For a lot of us, Thanksgiving won't be the same without A&M and the Longhorns playing against each other."

The rivalry isn't ending. It should always be there. A part of it is dying with the end of this annual tradition. This tradition is what helped make this rivalry. Without the game, there aren't the rituals of the tradition, and there isn't the same sense of self. Without this annual tradition, the rivalry won't be the same. The teams can play again in the future, but it won't be the same. It won't feel as important. It won't feel like Texas-Texas A&M. It'll just be another game.

But that's the reality of the current college football climate. Money is everything, and it has taken precedence over the things that we appreciate the most about college sports. We'd like these rivalries to go on forever, but for those of us whose schools have rivals, the end of this one makes us appreciate what we have.

On Thanksgiving, after you've had dinner and probably gained 10 pounds, sit back and enjoy this game. Enjoy the rivalry. Relish it. These things won't last forever. This one isn't.