Meetings total 118 Largest victory Texas, 48–0 (1898) | All-time series Texas leads, 76–37–5 Longest win streak Texas, 10 (1957–66) | |
First meeting October 19, 1894
Texas 38, Texas A&M 0 Latest meeting November 24, 2011
Texas 27, Texas A&M 25 | ||
The Texas–Texas A&M football rivalry was an American college football rivalry between the Texas Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies. The rivalry was played every year between 1915 and 2011, until A&M left the Big 12 Conference to join the Southeastern Conference. Texas leads the series 76–37–5.
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History
The first meeting was in 1894. By 1911, Texas led the series 15–4–2. The series went back and forth until 1939, but Texas still led 27–15–4. After that, Texas went 36–7–1. A&M then won 10 of the next 11 games in the series. Texas then won 12 of the last 17 games in the rivalry.
In July 2011, A&M elected to join the Southeastern Conference beginning in 2012. The move to switch conferences resulted in the ending of the rivalry. On November 24, 2011, Texas faced A&M in College Station in the final scheduled meeting of the rivalry. Texas won 27–25 on a field goal as time expired. In January 2013, a Texas state legislator filed a bill that would require them to play each other every year. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Higher Education on February 18, 2013.
Aspects of the rivalry
Each school mentions the other in its fight song ("and it's goodbye to A&M" in Texas Fight; the whole second verse of the Aggie War Hymn is about Texas). The football series was the third longest in college football. Since 1900, the last regular season football game was usually reserved for the match-up. Each school has elaborate pregame preparations for the annual football clash, including the Aggie Bonfire and Hex Rally. Texas has a unique lighting scheme for the UT Tower after beating Texas A&M.
In popular culture
In October 2006, General Mills announced they would honor the then third-longest running college football rivalry with a special edition Wheaties box. The box featured the helmets of Texas and Texas A&M and their respective home stadiums, Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium and Kyle Field, on either side. Although several individual college basketball and football teams had been featured previously on special edition boxes, this was the first time Wheaties had honored a rivalry series.
The game's tradition figures into the plot of the 1978 stage musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and its film adaptation; in the show, each year the game's winners (in the story, the Aggies) would celebrate at the "Chicken Ranch," until an overzealous news reporter (a character based on Marvin Zindler) endeavors to close the legendary brothel.