Ags remember with pride huge upset of Kansas State
Texas A&M was down a starting quarterback entering the 1998 Big 12 championship game, and few gave the Aggies a chance against undefeated Kansas State that December day in St. Louis.
Then Branndon Stewart, Randy McCown’s backup, was hurt in the first quarter against the Wildcats, and those few believers for A&M dwindled to next to none with a berth in the Sugar Bowl on the line for the Aggies.
A&M receiver Matt Bumgardner glanced to the sideline and saw wideeyed punter Shane Lechler, the backup to the backup quarterback, launching warm-up passes a 12-foot tight end couldn’t snag.
Turning to a teammate, Bumgardner kiddingly said, “I guess the Alamo Bowl isn’t going to be so bad.”
Then a crazy thing happened en route to one of the Aggies’ all-time upsets: Stewart fought through the pain of a hyperextended knee and returned before Lechler had a chance to display his corroded quarterbacking skills, which he had last honed about four years earlier at East Bernard High School. QB emergency
“I had kicking shoes on, and I was going to try and scamper on AstroTurf,” Lechler said. “It was setting up to be ugly. There would be plenty of jokes about me still today if I had played quarterback in that game.”
Texas A&M’s most stunning victory over the last two decades with title hopes involved has come up again because the Aggies and Wildcats meet again in Wednesday’s Advocare V100 Texas Bowl at NRG Stadium. A&M and Kansas State have not played in five years, just before the Aggies left the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference in 2012.
Hearing “Texas A&M” has revived the most painful football memory for Wildcats coach Bill Snyder. The Aggies under thencoach R.C. Slocum pulled off a 36-33 upset in double overtime in the 1998 Big 12 title game, and Kansas State was denied a chance to play for a national title.
“Most people remember the ones you won, I remember the ones you lost,” Snyder said. “If we win that ballgame, we play for the national championship. We had a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter, and we lost.”
That day also marked the last time A&M won a football title of any kind.
“It just goes to show how hard it is to win a conference title,” Bumgardner said. “It is surprising, though, considering it’s coming up on 20 years.” Devastated Wildcats
To men like Snyder, who hasn’t sniffed a shot at a national title since, the details seem like they took place 18 days ago, not 18 years. In the postgame news conference that memorable day in the Trans World Dome, Snyder was flanked by sobbing Wildcats players.
“We threw a Hail Mary at the end of (regulation) that would have given us the opportunity to win,” Snyder said this month. “Our receiver caught it on the 3-yard line, the gun went off and we went home (after two overtimes).”
A&M coach Kevin Sumlin, then a Purdue assistant, watched the outcome on television Dec. 5, 1998.
“I was in West Lafayette, Ind., and I didn’t see the whole game, but I caught the part that I needed to at the end,” Sumlin said. “What a game.”
The Aggies moved on to a Sugar Bowl loss to Ohio State, the last time they played in New Orleans. The Wildcats limped on to a loss to Purdue in the Alamo Bowl.
Sumlin and most everyone else recall the game’s finale: Sirr Parker’s 32-yard touchdown dash on a slant pass from Stewart. But Aggies who remember the fourth quarter also recall a catch by an outstretched Bumgardner gaining 36 yards, and keeping the game-tying drive alive, im- mediately after offensive pass interference.
“I thought Branndon had overthrown me,” Bumgardner said last week. “I really couldn’t even see the ball over the top of my helmet. I just kind of stuck my hands out. It looked like a great catch, but really it was just kind of lucky.” Steeped in lore
Less than a year later, Bumgardner hauled in the winning touchdown catch against Texas in the 1999 “Bonfire” game, played at Kyle Field eight days after the collapse of the bonfire structure that killed 12 Aggies and injured 27. Meaning the current Klein school district special education specialist is responsible for two of A&M’s alltime great catches.
“Nobody thought we were going to win the Big 12 championship against Kansas State,” Bumgardner said. “But we told ourselves we could play with these guys, no matter what they were ranked. As players, we knew we had a shot.”