Scheduling prevents revival of UT-A&M
COLLEGE STATION — The opposite of a seven-year itch is stirring across the state. The more than seven-year absence of Texas versus Texas A&M in football has caused hearts to suddenly grow fonder for the one-time rivalry game.
Either that or politicians young and old know which buttons to push on Texans for instant applause. Take Gov. Greg Abbott last Tuesday during his State of the State Address in Austin.
“I’m feeling moved, and I want to set the example,” said Abbott, a UT alum, near the end of his speech. “For example, I’m willing to step up and put aside past differences and work with (state Rep.) Lyle Larson to reinstate the rivalry game between the Aggies and Longhorns.”
Abbott’s declaration drew a rousing half-minute standing ovation in the State Capitol. Larson, an Aggie, has pushed for the game to be played with a symbolic bill calling for its revival — a bill without teeth mainly meant to keep the conversation rolling (both athletic departments are self-supporting and then some and don’t rely on state funds).
The burgeoning conversation is taking place on both campuses, too, with the student govern-
ments rallying together for the cause.
“One of the great aspects of this campaign is that we’re working hand-in-hand with the student leaders on the A&M campus, so it’s been really refreshing and nice to get their take on it,” UT student government member Jake Greenberg recently told the Daily Texan.
Two years ago, nearly 97 percent of about 8,000 UT students voted in favor of reigniting the rivalry — once again an emblematic measure. The A&M student government has passed a resolution to take a student vote on the same thing this spring.
“The purpose is to reinvigorate the passion that the game brings and to restore one of Texas A&M University’s most timehonored traditions,” the A&M resolution reads in part.
Considering current college freshmen were simply trying to wade through intermediate school the last time UT and A&M played football in 2011, they primarily have to rely on YouTube and tales of their elders on the mystique of what was once the state’s most ballyhooed rivalry around Thanksgiving.
The annual collision ended when A&M exited the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012, and while the programs have met in basketball and baseball among other sports since, football has been a no-go. A&M chancellor John Sharp told the Chronicle all of this sudden itching for the game could have been avoided going back seven years.
He cited then-UT president Bill Powers, then-UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds and thenUT chancellor Francisco Cigarroa as refusing to budge on the matter in 2012 — that with A&M breaking the rivals’ longtime league affiliation, a non-conference football contest was not going to happen.
“Right after we joined the SEC, my board asked me to immediately ask UT to reinstate the game,” Sharp said. “So I met with Bill Powers for lunch and asked to continue the game. He said no, that DeLoss Dodds was against it. Chancellor Cigarroa said the same thing.”
Scheduling is the main thing holding back the revival these days, Sharp said, along with adding another treacherous game to what both sides consider already rugged fall schedules in bids to make the four-team College Football Playoff.
“It all could have been done easier back then before we all started scheduling Power Five games,” Sharp said. “Now, it’s much more difficult because both teams have fixed schedules, and both want to have easier games in between to rest up between Power Five games.
“Both (school) presidents want to do this, and they’re working on it, but the delay from that early (request) has complicated it.”
UT president Gregory Fenves and Texas A&M president Michael Young visited with Austin American-Statesman staff members last month, and each said he was in favor of the game’s resuming — and then each spoke of the complications of scheduling marquee non-conference contests.
“We told our (athletic directors) to figure out a plan and bring it to us,” Fenves told the paper.
The leaders should not hold their breath. A&M athletic director Scott Woodward told the Chronicle last August that his counterpart at UT, Chris Del Conte, called earlier in 2018 with an offer: How about a home-andhome revival for 2022 and 2023? Woodward told him no thanks.
“We were already booked,” Woodward said. “We're booked 10 years out. He had an opening at the time, and it suited him, but it didn’t suit us.”
UT third-year coach Tom Herman has called for a renewal of the rivalry in the second game of each season. A&M second-year coach Jimbo Fisher said he doesn’t consider it a big deal that the old rivals, who have met on 118 occasions, continually butt heads in recruiting but no longer butt helmets.
“Our interest is east, with LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas ...” Fisher said. “That's where we go, and those are our rivalries, too. We’re recruiting against all of them, too.”
The Longhorns contend the Aggies can look east all they want but also will always have to look at what’s shaping up as quite longtime bragging rights — a 2725 UT victory on Justin Tucker's 40-yard field goal as time expired on Thanksgiving in 2011.
“That last game in College Station, who won that one?” Del Conte asked a crowd at the first Texas Athletics Town Hall last week, providing more evidence the rivalry indeed presses on. “We did. They’ve got to live with that.”
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