The Lone Star Showdown Is Back: A Brief History Between Texas A&M & Texas

It's been 13 years since the Texas Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies have faced each other on a football field. But to nobody's surprise, the hate still resides heavily, and the two will finally be able to express it again this Saturday.

Nov 24, 2011; College Station, TX, USA; Texas Longhorns kicker Justin Tucker (19) celebrates after kicking the game winning 40-yard field goal against the Texas A&M Aggies during the second half at Kyle Field. Texas won 27-25. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Campbell-US Presswire / Thomas Campbell-Imagn Images

The Lone Star Showdown between the Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies had been paused after Texas A&M left the Big 12 for the SEC in 2012. But now, each team can no longer avoid each other with the Longhorns joining the SEC earlier this year.

The game was due to come back. Each team talks about each other in their school's fight songs, and the history was just too rich for the two to ignore each other for too long.

Before the last game in 2011, the two teams had played annually since 1915, making it the third-longest rivalry in college sports before it was paused. The rivalry dates back to 1894 however, and Saturday will be the 119th all-time meeting.

And while the Aggies have been competitive throughout most of their history, the Longhorns have the all-time meeting won by a large margin, 76-37-5 (64.4% win percentage). And a lot of that has to do with the beginning games.

The first seven matches between 1894-1901 were all Texas wins with the Aggies failing to even score. The 48-0 victory for Texas in 1898 is still today the largest margin of victory for the rivalry. The Aggies were once again unsuccessful in their attempt to score against the Longhorns in the eighth matchup in 1902, but the Longhorns failed to score as well, resulting in the first tie of the series.

The next game in 1902 is where Texas A&M took home their first win against Texas with an 11-0 victory. But the tide turned back to the Longhorns, with the next eight games favoring Texas 7-0-1.

But after that, we start to see a seesaw battle between the two for superiority. Between 1909 and 1939, Texas A&M took a slight advantage with a 14-13-2 winning record in those years. But 1939, the year Texas A&M defeated Texas 20-0 and was named national champions, was the last time the Aggies would win for some time.

It would be 1951 when the Aggies would upset the No. 16 Longhorns in College Station 22-21 that they would win again. Before that, Texas had won the last 10 of 11 games with the eleventh being a tie in 1948.

And even with the upset in 1951, it was all burnt orange throughout the 50s and 60s. The Longhorns went on to win 21 of the next 23 games against A&M. A lot of that could be attributed to the emergence of legendary Texas head coach Darrell K. Royal in 1957 who won national championships in 1963, 1969, and 1970 for the Longhorns. In 1963, Texas went into College Station and narrowly won 15-13 to finish the season undefeated.

No. 2 Texas A&M's 20-15 victory over No. 5 Texas in 1975 started the Aggies best run of the rivalry. They would go on to be 16-9 in the next 25 years before the turn of the 21st century where Mack Brown and Texas won six straight between 2000-2005 before getting upset in 2006 12-7 in Austin.

Before the Aggies moved to the SEC, Texas was able to get the last laugh, winning the last game in 2011 27-25 behind a game-winning field goal from Justin Tucker.

Since then, there have been many attempts for the rivalry to come back, regardless of conference alignment. Current Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte tried to contact A&M AD Scott Woodward on a home-and-away series between 2022 and 2023 but it was declined due to the Aggies already filling out their out-of-conference games those seasons. Furthermore, a representative in Texas tried to pass a bill that would require the two to resume the series in 2018. It got support from the Governor of Texas himself, Greg Abbott, but the bill died in committee.

Now we are brought to today. It has been 13 years since the last game, and just a couple of days removed from the next game, with a trip to the SEC Championship on the line. The stage is set for a true Texas showdown that many families in the state couldn't wait to come back.

Will it be "goodbye to A&M"? or will Varsity's horns be sawed off? We will see on Saturday, but in the meantime, here are some of the landmark games of the long and crazy Lone Star Showdown.

1894: Texas 38, Texas A&M 0

The first matchup between the two in a long history. Texas would start with seven straight wins and the Aggies would fail to score in the first eight games.

1915: Texas A&M 13, Texas 0

A big game in the lore of the rivalry. First off, it started the streak of the annual game that stretched between 1915 and 2011. Secondly, it's rumored that the Cadets of Texas A&M stole Texas's live mascot a year after to brand it with the score "13-0". When it was given back, Texas decided to name its mascot "Bevo" because it resembled the score. Although this has widely been just a legend, Texas had planned to name its mascot "Bevo" before the branding happened.

1957: Texas 9, No. 4 Texas A&M 7

A year after the Aggies went into Austin to win 34-21, Texas delivered its revenge with a massive upset over the fourth-ranked Aggies in College Station. This also marks the first of ten consecutive victories for Texas.

1963: No. 1 Texas 15, Texas A&M 13

The Aggies almost spoiled Texas's first national championship in 1963. The Aggies went into the game 2-6-1 while the Longhorns were undrafted. That didn't mean anything as heading into the fourth, Texas was down 13-3. That was before running back Tommy Ford found the endzone for Texas early in the fourth and then quarterback Duke Carlisle got the game-winning touchdown with 1:19 left to win the game.

1975: No. 2 Texas A&M 20, No.5 Texas 10

This still marks as the only game where both teams were in the top ten at the time of playing.

The Longhorns failed to win their eighth consecutive game against the Aggies losing 20-10 in College Station. The Aggies stayed undefeated after the win but lost to Arkansas the week after to take them out of the conversation for national champions.

1990: No. 5 Texas 28, Texas A&M 27

The Longhorns escaped the narrow game to finally take back bragging rights in the series after losing a series-long five consecutive games the years prior.

1998: Texas 26, No. 6 Texas A&M 24

Longhorns kicker Kris Stockton knocked through a field goal with just five seconds to go in the game to give Texas a thrilling upset win in Mack Brown's first season as head coach. Oh, and Ricky Williams set the all-time rushing record, and sealed the Heisman Trophy on one of the most iconic runs in college football history.

1999: No. 24 Texas A&M 20, No. 7 Texas 16

This game followed the horrible 1999 Aggie Bonfire tragedy, where the Aggies were able to complete the second-half comeback to win in College Station. A&M wide receiver Matt Bumgardner caught the game-winning pass from quarterback Randy McCown with 5:02 remaining.

2006: Texas A&M 12, No. 11 Texas 7

A year removed from winning the national championship, Texas gets upset in Austin 12-7 after Aggies quarterback Stephen McGee scrambled into the endzone with just 2:32 remaining. Colt McCoy threw three interceptions as a Freshman while A&M rushed for 244 yards in the game.

2011: No. 25 Texas 27, Texas A&M 25

The last game of the rivalry before the pause finished with an electric end with Texas kicker Justin Tucker hitting a 40-yard field goal as time expired. Case McCoy only threw for 110 yards the entire game but helped lead the Longhorns from their own 24 in the final drive.

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