Texas & Texas A&M: Year One of The DivorceJuly 27, 2012
by: Chad Stanton
This year Texas will be playing on TCU on Thanksgiving Day. While TCU is a fine college that the Longhorns have a historical rivalry with it’s not quite the same as playing our little brothers from College Station.
Texas vs. Texas A&M was an institution in it’s own right, with traditions that run central to the mythology of both schools. It’s sad that a television station had to be the straw that broke the back of Aggie’s anger causing them to take their ball and head east where they’ll be “appreciated”. Did Texas make a big stick move in announcing their network and pushing for high school games, yeah, but that’s what we do. I mean, we’re Texas, and we know good and well that if Texas A&M could do the same they would. We didn’t expect them to actually leave, it was a dance we played, the Horns do something awesome and Aggies throw shade and buy another “Saw ‘Em Off” shirt, which proceeds goes to Texas’ coffers.
It’s not as if we don’t understand the frustration of our friends over to the east. Years of being relegated to second best, at best, in the state has a way of rankling nerves, we were just happy it wasn’t us. Was it so bad being married? We had some good times, after knocking Colt McCoy out in 2009, his revenge game is what propelled him into the heart of of Burnt Orange Nation for good. We didn’t know how deep the complex went out there.
Texas A&M saw a chance to get out from under the burnt orange shadow and now we’ll see how they fare against the top-heavy SEC. Of course we’re not going to keep them on schedule. Why should we pay alimony when they are the ones who decided to leave. If A&M wants to play hardball then hardball it is. We’re playing our new boos on Thanksgiving, they’re better anyway. We will miss seeing you stand up throughout the game, trying to get kisses every time your team scores, it was cute and all but that’s through now that you’d rather be rivals with who…South Carolina. Good luck with all that.
I don’t doubt they’ll be competitive, if not elite, as a matter of fact I hope that’s the case seeing as to how they’ll be the only Texas representatives in the conference and I’d hate to see the good name of the greatest state in the nation sullied. See we don’t hate Aggies here in Austin, we don’t love those maroon Napoleons, but we don’t seethe with contempt for them. We sip our tea as they deign to claim the mantle of the superior football school while we boast a 75-37-5 all-time record over them. We count up the number of Big XII titles they won while they crow about taking the SEC fast track to multiple national champions and we say “we’ll see”. We won the last game and if they ever make it to the Champions Bowl, we’ll win the next. This first year will hurt but we’ll grow callous and move on in the way we must, we have to think of our renewed rivalry with TCU after all, but we’ll be watching and gloating and lamenting our divorce while waving goodbye to A&M.
