The College Football Rivalry That We Miss the Most

Thursday afternoon, the state of Texas pulsed with anticipation for a great night of rivalry college football.

Across the state, Texas and Texas A&M fans prepared for gridiron excitement as they chowed down on turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and candied yams, awaiting the evening’s results.

At 6:30 p.m., that excitement built to a crescendo as the Longhorns and Aggies kicked off…in stadiums 107 miles apart, with Texas hosting TCU and A&M hosting LSU.

That, sadly, is the state of one of college football’s best rivalries. It now exists only on parallel tracks, in separate leagues, like divorced spouses who’ve remarried and moved to new neighborhoods.

Texas and Texas A&M still share the same state, but they share little else these days. A&M’s move to the Southeastern Conference following the 2011 season ended the rivalry, and there are few signs that it will be renewed anytime soon.

“I was sad to see it go,” said former Texas quarterback and current Bleacher Report analyst Chris Simms, who won three of four starts against the Aggies from 1999-2002. “It’s one of the best rivalries in all of sports in general. It’s a shame that on Thanksgiving weekend, one of the best rivalries sports has to offer doesn’t exist anymore.”

Every year from 1915-2011, the Aggies and Longhorns faced off in the regular-season finale, always on Thanksgiving weekend, sometimes on Thanksgiving night or the following day. But no matter the exact day, it was always important. While Texas dominated the series overall (holding a 76-37-5 lead), the rivalry galvanized the state, divided families and friends and drove intense conversation and acrimony.

However, something deeper bubbled beneath the surface. As longtime Austin American-Statesman columnist Kirk Bohls puts it, “A&M is like the little brother that big-brother Texas liked to bully around.”

The acrimony bubbled over in early 2011 when Texas announced a partnership with ESPN to launch the Longhorn Network, a first-of-its-kind 24-hour network devoted solely to Texas sports with a 20-year, $300 million contract.

Butch Dill/Associated Press

By July, the ill will between the two schools led to Texas A&M’s agreement to bolt to the SEC, a move that became official in September 2011.

“Ill will doesn’t begin to describe it,” Bohls said. “That’s the understatement of grand proportions. Many, if not most, Aggies will blame the Longhorn Network and Texas arrogance and inability to share conference monies equally as the reasons for the exodus of A&M, Missouri, Nebraska and Colorado. The LHN was just the catalyst.”

In Bohls’ eyes, “A&M was running from something as much as to something,” noting the Aggies’ added exposure in the SEC and Johnny Manziel’s Heisman Trophy in 2012 but adding that A&M could find less success in both football and basketball than it did in the Big 12.

“At least the Aggies took responsibility for themselves, chose to stand on their own two legs and no longer be bossed around by Texas,” he said.

A&M’s departure for the SEC meant that 2011’s game was the final scheduled meeting between the two sides: Texas kicked a final-play field goal to score a 27-25 victory.

There are no games currently scheduled between the two rivals. Per FBSchedules.com, Texas’ nonconference slate is full through 2018 with one game scheduled for 2019, while A&M’s non-league schedule is full from 2015-17 and 2019 with a marquee game against Clemson the only game scheduled for 2018.

Eric Gay/Associated Press

Last November, Texas A&M president R. Bowen Loftin (who has since left for the same job at Missouri) said he is open to resuming the rivalry eventually.

“There's no reason why we shouldn't play each other, if we want to,” Loftin told Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle. "I think (Texas) will at some point in time feel like it's the right thing to do as well, and we'll get there."

Texas is certainly open to the idea. In March, new Texas head coach Charlie Strong told CBSSports.com's Jeremy Fowler he’d “love to play” the rivalry.

“(Texas fans) will tell you they don’t miss it,” Bohls said. “But the school will put an Aggie lowlight on its Jumbotron to big cheers, so that to me suggests they still care enough to mock an opponent. I think the same goes for A&M. I still think it’s a rich rivalry that should be mined in the future.”

In Simms’ eyes, A&M is missing the perfect opportunity to take the lead in the rivalry while Texas rebuilds, gaining ground in-state in the process.

“The way I look at it, they’re wasting precious years,” he said. “They could be dominating the rivalry and kick us while we’re down right now, gain some younger fans as people come up in the rivalry, come into the A&M bandwagon. They have first-round (NFL) picks flying off the boards and we (Texas) couldn’t even get anyone drafted last year.”

For now, both sides have moved on. A&M has hooked up with SEC West neighbor LSU for an end-of-season rivalry, and Texas has faced in-state foes Texas Tech and TCU the past two seasons on Thanksgiving. Although Bohls said those “pale in comparison to the raw hatred and acrimony between the two sides.”

With both teams bowl-eligible this fall but neither close to the College Football Playoff picture, an excellent opportunity exists in the Texas Bowl, which will match Big 12 and SEC foes in Houston. Texas Bowl chairman Jamey Rootes told Zwerneman that a Longhorns-Aggies matchup “would really be outstanding for our fans, our community and the two schools.”

But Chip Brown of Horns Digest said the SEC won’t let the matchup happen because A&M has nothing to gain from a matchup.

“That would be cool,” Simms said of such a matchup. “Maybe fans would sit in the stands, watch a great game and think, ‘What the hell were we doing getting rid of this rivalry?’ There’s too much fun and passion involved with it and a great respect in the rivalry. I felt more hate between Texas and Oklahoma than Texas-Texas A&M.

“There’s respect in-state for a battle to be king of the state. Maybe that would open everyone’s eyes and make them realize that they’re missing out on a great thing.”

College football nonconference scheduling has trended away from home-and-home matchups toward one-off, neutral-site classics, but Bohls has an idea that marries the two.

He says a Texas-Texas A&M matchup every Labor Day at Houston’s NRG Stadium “would be a great way to kick off the season.”

“But I think A&M is content to stay in the SEC and bypass Texas, and Texas feels it stayed in the Big 12 and A&M left, so the heck with them," Bohls said. "It’d be great to have the matchup return. Until it does, a little piece of college heaven dies.”

So on we march with the rivals moving on parallel courses, avoiding each other.

When that happens, college football fans are the real losers.

*Unless otherwise noted, all quotes for this article were obtained directly by the author.