COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Texas and Texas A&M first met on the football field in 1894 in a rivalry that would cut across the state and through families for generations.
But a bitter breakup would eventually come between them.
In 2011, Texas A&M announced it was leaving Texas and the Big 12 behind to join the Southeastern Conference, determined to focus only on a bright future, not dwell on a sentimental past.
Resentful finger pointing and hard feelings eventually gave way to shrugs of indifference and mutters of “good riddance.”
Thirteen years later, the family feud has reignited. Texas is playing in the SEC this season, and the No. 3 Longhorns and No. 20 Aggies finally meet again Saturday night in College Station with new intensity: A berth in the SEC championship game is on the line.
“I’ve missed this. It’s too good of a game not to play,” said Dan Neil, a former Texas All-American offensive lineman who played in the rivalry from 1992-1996.
Neil called the breakup a “shame.” Former Texas quarterback Case McCoy, whose crazy-legs scramble set up the Longhorns’ game-winning field goal in 2011, was more blunt about the lost years of a treasured rivalry.
“I feel like it was stolen from the last generation of football players,” McCoy said.
The split came amid a tumultuous period of conference realignment across the country that had Texas in the middle of it all.
The Big 12 had already lost Colorado to the Pac-12 and Nebraska to the Big Ten. Texas had also flirted with joining the Pac-12 and taking longtime rival Oklahoma and other Big 12 schools with it. Texas A&M meanwhile, briefly looked eastward toward the SEC.
The boat was still rocking a year later when Texas and ESPN effectively flipped it over with a 20-year, $300 million deal to launch the now-defunct Longhorn Network. Big 12 rivals bitterly complained the swaggering Longhorns were stomping over the rest of the league.
The Aggies had enough. The two schools played in the same conference since 1915, but A&M saw a chance to strike out on its own. The SEC was the most powerful football conference in the country and promised more money and more respect and a big leap out of Texas’ shadow.
When Texas A&M informed the Big 12 it was leaving, then-President R. Bowen Loftin called it a “100-year decision” the school had addressed “carefully and methodically.”
Years later, he described a simple desire to get away from Texas.
“A&M had to do something, something bold and something that was really meant for A&M,” Loftin told the Houston Chronicle in 2021. “Something that did not necessarily link us in the future to that school in Austin.”
The result ripped apart a deeply-rooted state tradition. The game was as much of a Thanksgiving staple as turkey, stuffing and pecan pie.
“I went to Texas to play in the A&M game,” said McCoy, whose family has deep roots in the rivalry. His older brother Colt was one of the greatest quarterbacks in Longhorns’ program history.
“My dad was a (Texas) high school football coach. My grandparents, uncles, brother, everyone has a part,” of the rivalry, McCoy said. “If you were a kid growing up in Texas, it meant a lot.”
The Aggies left the Big 12 knowing a split could be coming, and said they told Texas they wanted to keep playing. Texas said its non-conference schedule was already full for several years.
So as the Texas fight song says, “goodbye to A&M.” For spite or schedule, a tradition was about to be lost.
“It was a travesty,” said former Texas running back Ricky Williams, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1998 and set the NCAA career rushing record against the Aggies.
“I thought it was dumb to get rid of that game because to me that game is deeper, it’s more powerful than conferences,” Williams said.
The 2011 game before the breakup was an instant classic.
In a tense, back-and-forth matchup in front of a frenzied crowd in College Station, McCoy’s frantic, 25-yard scramble through the heart of the defense set up Justin Tucker’s 40-yard field goal as time expired.
Texas’ 27-25 victory on the scoreboard hung over the stunned home crowd that was unsure if it would ever be avenged.
“It parted like the Red Sea,” McCoy said of the A&M defense. “Thank God we won that game … I married into a family that, other than my wife, is all Aggies. I live it all the time.”
There were passing mentions of resuming the rivalry over the years. Then in 2021, Texas and Oklahoma were officially invited to join the SEC.
Texas A&M, thinking it had permanently split from the Longhorns, was stunned. The loss in 2011 was like a kick in the teeth. Texas’ move to the SEC was a gut punch.
Texas was initially approved for entry in 2025, then it was moved up to this year. The Aggies at least get home-field advantage and a nighttime kickoff at raucous Kyle Field for the reunion.
“I’ll be there at the game and my kids and family will be there,” former Texas A&M All-American linebacker Dat Nguyen said. “I want them to experience it and absorb it because we don’t want to take it for granted. Because you never know. Hopefully, (a breakup) won’t happen again.”
Former Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum is ready for the reunion. He summed up what it should mean to the players who are part of it.
“I always told our guys that in the tall buildings in Dallas and Fort Worth, and Houston and San Antonio, and in the deer blinds out in West Texas, this will be the most talked about subject this week,” Slocum said.
“And when you get older and for the rest of your life, people are gonna be talking about this game,” he said. “So, you need to make it turn out the way that you will enjoy talking about it.”
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Vertuno reported from Austin, Texas
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