The Eternal Scoreboard by Larry Carlson

 
Thanksgiving afternoon in 1967 was bad enough for All-American linebacker Corby Robertson and his Texas Longhorn teammates.  On Texas A&M’s eleventh crack at Darrell Royal, they had eked out a 10-7 win in College Station.  With the sweet win would come the Aggies’ first Cotton Bowl since 1942.  
Texas had lost its final two games to blow any shot at the conference title.  On this Turkey Day, Bill Bradley threw four interceptions and the Horns donated two fumbles and missed a field goal.  Just a dog day afternoon.  It was about to get a bit more frustrating.
“We had to get dressed in four inches of water,” Robertson recalls, his tone showing disgust.
Seems the Aggie managers had clogged the shower drains with towels and flooded the visitors’ locker room.  Great, traditional fun for those rollicking guys with buzzcuts.
 
“The next year, in Austin, we were up on ’em 35 to nothing by halftime,” Robertson says, brightening.  Then Corby mentions that fellow captain Bill Bradley, in a remarkable turnabout for the ’68 SWC champion Longhorns, had picked off four Aggie passes.  Payback time.
“We didn’t do anything to their locker room,” Robertson continues.  “We let our pads do the talking.”
 
The Aggies had a penchant, in spite of their agricultural expertise, of overwatering.
When top-ranked Texas arrived for Thanksgiving ’63, the work order seemed simple.  Just beat a lower-than-whale dung team with one conference win and you sew up the national championship.  
But DKR was royally angered when he tested the turf at Kyle field, supposedly covered with a tarp during rain the week of the game.  The Aggies blamed leaks but the field was a sea of muck and mud, colored with green dye for innovative color television.
Frank Erwin of the UT Board of Regents was reportedly livid, and dished out an incendiary written statement in the press box at halftime, calling the state of the field “a disgrace and a reflection on A&M.”
The nation’s number one team delivered six hot turnovers to the Maroon that afternoon, and trailed 13-3 when the fourth quarter began.
But the Horns persevered and the Aggies choked.  One A&M defender picked off a pass but cleverly attempted a lateral to a teammate and Texas recovered.  Another defenseman juggled a would-be game-clinching interception until he was out of the end zone.  Bottom line:  After UT had closed to 13-9, deep backup QB Tommy Wade, the “designated passer” of the Horns’ three-deep roster, drove Texas 80 yards, completing five of ten passes on the do-or-die drive.  Four of the incompletions tantalizingly touched Aggie hands.  Starting QB Duke Carlisle came in to sneak a yard for the winning score.  Texas had survived, 15-13.  Five weeks later, they re-wrote the narrative for the skeptical Eastern media by stomping Navy and Heisman winner Roger Staubach, 28-6 in the Cotton Bowl.
 
******
Indulge this aged writer for just a sec, please.
You get imprinted by your surroundings, your influences, as a kid.
From second grade through college years, I enjoyed Thanksgiving with my parents, my older sisters, and then their husbands.  We ate turkey and dressing — my Mom made traditional cornbread dressing and tasty oyster dressing — and then watched Texas beat the hell out of the hapless Aggies on TV.  It was tradition.  Only once in those first 15 years of my Longhorn fandom did the Horns falter.
Early on, Daddy and I had read that one of UT’s hammering linebackers, either Pat Culpepper or Johnny Treadwell, had uttered this as a team prayer at Thanksgiving:
“Lord…make us good winners.”
Forevermore, that was my family’s Thanksgiving pre-game prayer.
Tradition is a huge part of what makes Thanksgiving my favorite holiday.

https://texaslsn.org/texas-a-m-tradition-with-comments-from-larry-carlson/
 
******
 
Every football fan in the Lone Star State who has ever eaten a frito pie at a high school concession stand knows that the Longhorns and Aggies are set to resume the talking of the shoulder pads, the hatred, hijinks and everything else that comes with a rivalry that was more than a century old when it went on hiatus after 2011 when A&M joined the SEC.
Folks in burnt orange or maroon can well recall that UT’s Justin Tucker slammed a 40-yard kick to the hearts of all Aggies, as time expired that November night thirteen years ago.
Mack Brown, interviewed from North Carolina by ESPN this month, referred to that moment as “The Eternal Scoreboard.”
You crushed it, Mack.  Just like your kicker did.

https://texaslsn.org/texas-a-m-tradition-with-comments-from-larry-carlson/
 
So now we take a deep dive, not into a swamped locker room, but into a bit of the “modern” history of the ancient rivalry, especially to the trips made to College Station.  DKR’s herds went 8-2 at Kyle Field, Fred Akers followed up at 3-2, David McWilliams went ofer-3, John Mackovic lost two but did beat the Ags for the final SWC title in ’96, and Brown’s Horns won five of his seven road trips to Brazos County.  During the same span, UT won 19 and lost 8 when they hosted A&M.
Overall, dating back to 1894 — when Grover Cleveland was back in the White House again after having ceded it for four years to Benjamin Harrison…sound familiar? — Texas owns a healthy 76-37-5 series advantage.

https://texaslsn.org/1940-texas-am/
 
Darrell Royal’s first Longhorn bunch came in as underdogs against fourth-ranked A&M in the ’57 battle in College Station.  They emerged as 9-7 victors, having largely stifled Aggie halfback John David Crow.  He would win the Heisman Trophy the next week.  Among the Thanksgiving heroes for Royal were Bobby Lackey, Walt Fondren, Mike Dowdle, Jimmy Welch and Max Alvis, the soon-to-be All-Star third baseman for the Cleveland Indians.
 
The ’65 tug-o-war at Kyle Field lives on in lore at both schools.  The Aggies badly fooled the Horns on a trick play at the start of the second  quarter.   Dubbed “the Texas Special,” it involved a pass that was just slightly a lateral.  The Ag halfback on the “receiving” end reacted in frustration when the ball skidded to him.  He stomped angrily for a split second, the UT secondary relaxed at the purported incompletion…then the halfback lofted what would become a 91-yard touchdown strike.  The giddy Aggies quickly romped to ten more points and held a daunting 
17-0 halftime lead.  The Longhorns had started 4-0 and ranked number one, then collapsed and lost four of their next five.  Now they looked to be going out on a final, ultra-sour note.  In the last game for UT immortal, Tommy Nobis, dammit.

https://texaslsn.org/cant-buy-me-love-horns-and-aggies/

Not so fast.
At halftime, DKR famously told his players that blackboard diagrams might do no good.  Instead, according to Lou Maysel’s “Here Come The Texas Longhorns” book, he wrote “21-17” with the chalk and curtly said, “Here’s what you can do.”
Message delivered.  And received.
Nobis was Nobis.  (He and Fred Edwards combined for 21 tackles)
QB Marvin Kristynik, also in his final game, rallied the offense and hit fellow senior Pete Lammons with a third quarter TD pass.  Fullback Tom Stockton, yet another senior, and from Bryan of all places, rolled up 99 yards rushing.  
Halfback Jim Helms scored two TDs in the final period and Texas completed a determined, resolved, hell-bent comeback.  The Aggies had lost their way, and the big game, in Royal’s “Blackboard Jungle.”

https://texaslsn.org/texas-a-m-tradition-with-comments-from-larry-carlson/
 
“Aggy” sure as hell wound not discover a path to victory in the next few years,
Bob Tresch came in as freshman with the proud 1970 signing class and later started as an offensive tackle, then center, playing through 1974.
The Houstonian is blunt when asked for his memories surrounding the rivalry.
“We don’t respect them and never will,” Bob says.
“Every barbecue joint in rural Texas has an A&M calendar at the checkout counter next to the FFA photos of goats and sheep.” He recalled that former players spoke to the team during “aggy week” but said there was no need for extra motivation, the players taking it upon themselves to be ready, the fire having been steadily stoked all season.
“Gary Yeoman’s goal was to put an Aggie player out of the game,” Tresch said, saluting his teammate who shined as a DB at Texas.  “Not sure he accomplished that but he tried his best.  The game was about winning and another year of bragging rights for us and our fans.”  
Since Bob felt no need to reference the record book, I’ll provide this:  Texas was 5-0 against the Farmers in his time at the Forty Acres.  Not one of the games was close.

https://texaslsn.org/2005-aggies-lose-to-the-future-national-champions/
 
In 1977, Lance Taylor became the first UT sophomore linebacker since Tommy Nobis to earn All-Southwest Conference honors.  It was his first trip to Kyle Field and he remembers the home crowd being loud during warmups  “The Corps guys were standing on the sidelines with their swords, trying to stare us down,” Lance says.  “Fortunately, I had two friends from (El Paso Coronado) high school who were in the corps, and they ran on the field to greet me, much to the disappointment of their fellow cadets.”
Dissension in the ranks.  So much for the attempted intimidation.  
“Then after Earl (Campbell) ran for his first 100 yards (he would rush for 222), you could hear a pin drop,” Taylor noted.

https://texaslsn.org/1990-aggies-by-larry-carlson/

 
That same afternoon in College Station loomed large in QB Randy McEachern’s preparation.  “I had family members that were pulling for A&M, and the conference championship and undefeated season were on the line,” Randy said last week, looking back to the duel between top-ranked Texas and the 12th-ranked Ags.  The traditional “Aggie Supper” for the players provided added stimulus.
Said McEachern:  “Wally Scott, Sr. was so inspirational and emphatic about not losing to the Aggies that it brought tears to his eyes.  He said ‘you will not be able to come back (to Austin) and you will live in shame if you lose to them.’  
That stuck with me,” McEachern affirmed.

https://texaslsn.org/aggie-ed-simonini-softball-olympians-carl-johnson-and-byrd-baggett/
 
Then he peeled back another memory, this one dealing with UT’s superstar, Earl Campbell, touted as the Heisman favorite and pegged as the likely top pick in the coming spring’s NFL draft.  But pro scouts had heard that the Tyler Rose was cursed with hands of stone.  “So Coach Akers created a pass play just for Earl,” Randy explains.
“We practiced this play many, many times and half the time Earl would catch it, the other…not.”
Akers elected to dial up the experiment in the first quarter, with the Aggies ahead
7-0 and the crowd roaring.  McEachern says it was set up perfectly.  “I faked a handoff to Earl on the left side and rolled right like I was going to throw to Alfred Jackson on the right.  Earl was down the left sideline about 35 yards…I stopped and turned to find Earl wide open, throwing it toward him.  Earl later said he could see the whites of my eyes because I was not sure he would catch it.
“All is history now,” Randy sums up, “because he went 60 yards for a touchdown and (clinched) the Heisman Trophy, and the number one draft pick was his.”
Texas did not trail again en route to a smashing 57-28 win.

https://texaslsn.org/1920-texas-a-m/
 
What McEachern didn’t mention is another historical note:  His TD toss to Campbell was the first of four that the redshirt junior threw that afternoon, a feat that had not been duplicated by a Longhorn since 1915.  That was when the great Clyde Littlefield bombed Daniel Baker College with four scoring passes amid a 
92-0 annihilation of a hapless crew from Brownwood.

https://texaslsn.org/texas-a-m-tradition-with-comments-from-larry-carlson/
 
When I contacted the Longhorns’ all time sack leader, DE Kiki DeAyala, he called up a hard-earned win over the College Station guys in maroon back in 1981.  While Aggie QB Gary Kubiak was wearing DeAyala like an ill-fitting 240-pound necklace that afternoon, Texas did just enough damage offensively — Johnny “Sky” Walker rambled for 178 yards on the ground — to take home a Cotton Bowl bid with a 21-13 triumph.   DeAyala remembers a full stadium, a close game and plenty of shots on Kubiak.  “We had a big second quarter on offense, scoring all 21 points and the defense was just holding them over and over again,” Kiki recounts.
“It was nerve-wracking, knowing that we had to stop them the entire fourth quarter.”
But the D, led by DeAyala, William Graham and John Haines, shut the door on the Ags and shushed the Kyle Field crowd.

https://texaslsn.org/red-candle-tradition/
 
Turk McDonald, the Longhorns’ All-Conference center in 1992, can easily recall UT’s 28-27 thriller over the Aggies in Austin in ’90.  But the man who earned an early, early nickname because of a Thanksgiving birth date even acknowledges one good memory — a skirmish before the main event –from the ’89 loss to A&M in College Station.  “The team from M and A had started their pregame singalong and swaying and had come all the way inside the numbers on our sideline,” Turk said from Midland last week.  Some Texas players were having none of that.  
“Ed Cunningham, Ken Hackemack and a few others started running up and down their sway line, taunting them.  Then something happened and the brawl was on. It was ‘keep your head on a swivel,” McDonald says.  “No ejections, no penalties, no fines…now that was fun.”

https://texaslsn.org/1998-texas-a-m/
 
Back again to Bob Tresch, an O-line force during the era of DKR’s last three Cotton Bowl teams.  He is excited about the renewal of the celebrated late autumn feud.
“It’s my favorite time of the year when we’re playing A&M in the final game of the regular season.  It’s Thanksgiving and an opportunity to go hunting.  How many times have we listened to static on the radio at a remote deer lease, in order to hear the game,” big Bob asks, rhetorically.
“We all know an Aggie that we’d like to put in their place,” Tresch says.
“This game is that opportunity.  Keep it going.”

https://texaslsn.org/1977-texas-a-m/
 
I’ll leave it to Jay Arnold, Tresch’s old teammate and buddy, a fellow member of the notable ’70 signing class to punctuate the anticipation of the rivalry renewal with an exclamation mark.
Arnold is proud to have helped shut down and shut up plenty of Aggies in College Station, not once, not twice but three times.  
How’s that?
Arnold played for the Shorthorns freshmen who bashed the Aggies in ’70 (two years before freshmen became eligible for varsity).  Then he registered nine tackles as a defensive end when Texas ripped A&M in ’71.  He was back at his DE stand in Austin the next year in a 38-3 ass-whipping.  And Jay will gladly share memories of the 
journey to College Station in his senior season, 1973.  That’s when Arnold, now All-SWC as a defensive back, and his Horns grabbed UT’s sixth consecutive SWC title.  The recruiting class of ’70 finished with a conference record of 20-1, with 19 straight SWC wins.
 
Jay told me this month that, as the Longhorn buses pulled into Kyle Field’s parking area to unload and dress for the ’73 matchup, he took off his dress shoes and socks.  Then he began to roll up the legs of his trousers.  A young and curious teammate noticed, and asked what the hell he was doing before departing the bus.
Arnold, who  — along with his teammates — had already weathered a flooded visitors’ locker room at A&M on two occasions, was expecting the same antics and another drain-clogged changing area.  
“You’ll see,” he told his fellow Longhorn.
And Arnold recalls that the Aggie managers did not disappoint.  
Neither did the Longhorns.  
About four hours later, the scoreboard told the story:
Visitors 42, Aggies 13.
 
 
(TLSN’s Larry Carlson is a member of the Football Writers Association of America.  He teaches sports media at Texas State University and lives in his hometown, San Antonio.  Write to him at lc13@txstate.edu)