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IT Fanpost: Musings of a fan's 50 years of Texas versus Texas A&M games

by: RT Young4 hours ago

The following is an Inside Texas Fanpost from a long-time board member and season ticket holding legend.

To cap off the celebration of the Longhorns 27-17 victory over #3 Texas A&M, here’s a special fanpost. Longtime Inside Texas board member and my friend Bill M. has seen his fair share of Texas games.

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He’s attended a whopping 283 of 284 home games* (since 1976), gone to 50 straight Texas/OU games and 539 of the 618 total football games the Longhorns have played in that time. He’s seen all 39 Lone Star Showdowns since 1976 and is 20 and 19 in favor of the good guys in burnt orange. But Friday night resonated with him in a different way than many of the other numerous Texas vs A&M games in which he’s attended. I’ll let Bill M. take it away…

Aggies who were in school from 1984–94 are now grandparents and parents. Those are the most arrogant ones, the ones who carry “that burning desire” they always speak of to conquer The University. They’ve done everything in their power to revive that emotion in the current crop of Aggies.

They reveled in escaping to the SEC, where results have not been very kind to them, except for one phenom blip with Manziel in 2012. Their key motivation in life was fading, so they took pride in chanting “SEC, SEC, SEC” in a way they never did in the Big 12 or Southwest Conference. The success of the SEC was victory-adjacent enough for the Aggies.

Fast forward to The University entering the SEC. While they claim they would have blocked our membership, what they don’t realize is that our arrival saved their life’s mission. Those 1984–94 Aggies from “the dark ages,” as I call them, pulled all the old “good bull” out of the footlocker in the attic to teach a new generation why they really hated “tu.”

They whipped it into a frothing climax last year, proclaiming it “the most important game at Kyle Field of all time.”


Win, and they vanquish the memory of 27–25.
Win, and they reach the SEC Championship Game for the first time.
Win, and they teach “big brother” (a moniker they’ve never admitted to) what life is like in the SEC.

Then it all came crumbling down at vaunted Kyle Field in last year’s deceptive 17–7 Longhorn win, deceptive only in that it was far more dominant than the score would indicate. Aggie dreams crushed. Again.

On to 2025, when the football gods somehow smiled on the long-downtrodden Aggies. A schedule which broke perfectly. Balls bounced their way. Penalties (even against them) and opponent injuries worked in their favor. And lo and behold, the Aggies arrived in Austin 11–0 for just the third time in school history, convinced that DKR Memorial Stadium was nothing more than a wine-tasting environment.

This would be the moment of cleansing.
The slaying of the Longhorn dragon.
The final unraveling of years of inferiority.

Sike!!!!!!

DKR was a raucous hell house. And along the way, they learned a new concept: most games come down to Jimmy’s and Joe’s, X’s and O’s and under NIL, money that is now legal.

Much like Doc Holliday in Tombstone when he shows up to face Johnny Ringo instead of Wyatt Earp. He flashes the badge and says, “Now it’s legal.” That’s what NIL has done to the game—especially for the multi-probation–earning Aggies.

Yeah, y’all were bad-ass when you had the FedEx account shipping wads of cash to recruits. Probably something the elder Aggs have neglected to tell the younger generation while they immerse them in the cult.

This pure-fan nonsense they spout (and believe) will only heat up the rivalry. But the younger generation will look at the results and understand one thing very clearly:

We own them.

Because we’ve got dudes who can play, too. And while we may not have reached our potential this season, we sure as hell did when it mattered against our two biggest rivals.

27–17.
Adios, Aggies.

Will A&M win some playoff games? Probably. Or maybe. But Friday night—and that environment—will sting for a long time. A seed of permanent doubt has been planted in their younger fans, and any history they look up will confirm the ownership of their beloved Aggie football team.

As for Texas, it was TCB, baby—taking care of business in our house, which takes a back seat to no one.

2026 in Kyle Field: the next “most important game ever.”

*You will truly never guess which home game Bill M. missed in Austin

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