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Jim, did you see DF's press conference Monday? He was sitting there with his arms crossed like he knew something (looked y). Wonder what he knows...
Nov. 25, 2004, 1:19AM
When a rivalry turned
Texas A&M's upset victory at UT in 1984 began an unprecedented run of Aggies domination. There are parallels between then and now. Will history repeat itself?
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
Teams representing Texas and Texas A&M have been playing football games against each other since 1894. But you can make the argument that the rivalry didn't truly flower until Dec. 1, 1984 — 20 years ago — with a 37-12 A&M victory. ADVERTISEMENT
"If you talk about it being a true rivalry before (1984), I have to question that," said R.C. Slo , who was involved in 31 games as an assistant and head coach at Texas A&M. "You go back and look at the records, and there wasn't much to it before then."
Before 1984, A&M had beaten Texas 22 times in 90 games. Since then, the Aggies have won 12 of 20. Simple math supports Slo 's contention. More than a third of A&M's victories in the series have come in the last two decades.
After an 11-3 A&M run between 1984 and 1997, Texas has re-established dominance under coach Mack Brown with four consecutive victories and five in six seasons. And the No. 6 Longhorns are favorites to beat the No. 22 Aggies on Friday in Austin.
But we have seen that rivalries can change quickly — and decisively — at the most unexpected of moments.
It certainly happened in 1984. A few weeks after a Republican president was elected to a second term. A couple months after an American pixie won the women's gymnastics all-around Olympic gold medal. At a time when people were buzzing about a sports-related riot in Detroit, this time in the wake of the 1984 World Series.
With Texas sailing along under a coach whose teams won lots of games but had fallen short in recent big ones. And with A&M trying to rebuild under a new, charismatic head man.
Hmmm ...
Can it happen again?
"I don't think so," said Austin radio talk show host Jeff Ward. "I don't think that the A&M team is there quite yet."
Then he paused.
"It is set up somewhat similar," Ward admitted.
subhed: Going up, going down
Ward was at the center of things in 1984. As the Longhorns' sop re kicker, he lined up for a third-quarter field goal attempt that would put Texas, trailing 20-0, on the scoreboard. The kick was blocked by Domingo Bryant and returned 76 yards by linebacker Scott Polk to the Texas seven. The Aggies failed to score, but they had effectively seized momentum for the remainder of the evening.
"I had never had a field goal blocked in my life," Ward said. "That was a microcosm of the night. We got blindsided. We got a bloody nose."
It was A&M's first win against Texas since 1980 and its first under Jackie Sherrill, who was in his third year as, at the time, college football's highest-paid coach.
Sherrill's first two A&M teams lost decisively to Fred Akers' Longhorns, 53-16 in 1982 and 45-13 in 1983. Sherrill was particularly steamed by the second loss — or, more specifically, the Texas fans' reaction to the Longhorns' one-sided victory.
"Their fans started chanting, `Poor Aggies,' " Sherrill said. "I couldn't understand what they were saying at first, so I asked (longtime A&M trainer) Billy Pickard. He told me they were saying, `Poor Aggies,' and I told the team after the game, `They won't be saying that anymore.' "
But A&M struggled again in 1984 and was 4-5 after a 28-0 loss to Arkansas before rebounding with a 35-21 win against TCU that knocked the Horned Frogs out of contention for the Southwest Conference le.
Texas, meanwhile, was ranked No. 1 in the country after a non-conference win over Penn State but lost the top spot after tying Oklahoma, then was beaten by Houston and upset 24-10 by Baylor the week before playing Texas A&M.
"Our confidence built through the year," Polk, who is now in the jewelry manufacturing business in Dallas, said of the 1984 Aggies. "We had better talent because of recruiting. It was an issue of guys wanting to win and having the ability to do so. And there was, to some degree, a case of A&M rising and Texas, at best, plateauing. And maybe we wanted and needed it more."
Sherrill insists Texas had better talent.
"We had a lot of young kids who became good players, but Texas had the better team at the time," he said.
Ward isn't so sure.
"That happened to be their breakout day, but they already had talent. What happened was no fluke," he said.
Even Sherrill acknowledges that the Aggies probably had the best player on the field in defensive lineman Ray Childress.
"He made the decision we were not going to lose that game," Sherrill said.
On offense, the Aggies went to more motion with their wide receivers in an attempt to shake Texas' flypaper man-to-man secondary coverage.
At any rate, the Aggies dominated the game. They had 287 rushing yards to 80 for the Longhorns, held the ball for 35:55, and converted on 11 of 19 third-down plays.
As the points mounted, Alan Cannon, now an assistant athletic director at A&M but then a student spotter for the ESPN crew working the game, slid a note to the stage manager noting that the Aggies had set records for points scored against the Longhorns in Austin and, eventually, for points scored in the series against Texas.
Each time, however, the stage manager slid it back. "I don't believe you," he said flatly.
But it was true. And for Texas, it would get worse. Akers said after the game that the Longhorns would go to the Freedom Bowl against Iowa and "pick ourselves up and play a real football game." Instead, they got hammered 55-17 as Chuck Long, now the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Oklahoma, threw for 461 yards.
When the teams gathered the next season at College Station, the balance of power and the emotional equilibrium of the series had changed.
"We were a year older and better, and Texas was under pressure to atone for losing the year before," Slo said. "But we won it, and we kept getting better, and the pressure started mounting.
"One team (A&M) had confidence, and the other team was pressuring. And if the game goes true to form, the team playing with confidence usually wins. There's some psychology that gets in there."
A&M totaled 42 points in 1985, breaking the scoring record set a year earlier, and lost just once (in 1990) to Texas between 1984 and 1994 before the Longhorns revived under John Mackovic and Brown. And they've bounced back with a vengeance, scoring at least 40 points in four of their six wins over A&M since 1996.
But if you look hard enough for them, there are signs that Dennis Franchione, who is in his second year at A&M, is following the same path Sherrill and Slo blazed two decades ago.
The Aggies have played three overtime games this season, the most recent a 32-25 victory over Texas Tech, and took No. 2 Oklahoma to the wire before losing 42-35. Texas has won five in a row since a 12-0 loss to Oklahoma but has struggled in wins over Oklahoma State and Kansas and almost certainly will fall short once more of a Bowl Championship Series berth.
"Could Texas be getting fat and happy? Maybe," Ward said. "We were kind of fat and happy the day we played them (in 1984). There wasn't a lot riding on it in terms of the standings, and the next thing you know, A&M had broken out.
"A great showing by A&M this year really launches them. They have more to gain than Texas does. A win in Austin is three steps forward for them. For Texas, it's maybe a half-step forward."
Brown is certainly aware of the potential for peril but said he hasn't addressed it with the Longhorns "because we don't need to."
"They can see that A&M is playing well," he said. "Our guys know that this is an even ballgame on Friday, and they know that sometimes there's more pressure on the team that's been winning."
Added UT offensive lineman Will Blalock: "A win over Texas could validate their season. You don't want them to get that taste in their mouths."
Franchione is no stranger to rivalry games. His Alabama team in 2002 snapped a seven-year losing streak to Tennessee with a 34-14 win at Knoxville.
"You hope that this is a barometer game that can send things in the other direction, and this could be one of those," he said. "Look at Ohio State (beating Michigan last weekend). There are intangibles that surround games like this one that can make a difference. I hope that we can manufacture something like that in preparing our team for this one.
If they can, Thanksgiving weekend will once again take on a renewed sense of urgency for the Aggies and Longhorns.
"I've always thought that if a Mack Brown team lost to Oklahoma and A&M in the same year, you would see the heat turned up," Ward said. "Some people have written off OU because Bob Stoops is that good a coach. But if you had a loss to two rivals in the same year and it looked like Fran was about to take off, you'd have a different level of heat."
Jim, did you see DF's press conference Monday? He was sitting there with his arms crossed like he knew something (looked y). Wonder what he knows...
64-34-5
wake me when thats close to being even
Aggy Fran knows that he robbed the bank and can tell his team to "hold the rope" while he goes to a more prestigious team next year.
Why not? The pressure is squarely on UT. Even if A&M loses, after their turnaround this year, Fran is still a hero and, IMO, Big XII coach of the year.Jim, did you see DF's press conference Monday? He was sitting there with his arms crossed like he knew something (looked y). Wonder what he knows...
Congrats on the dominance before WWI. Impressive.64-34-5
Worked for Roscoe didn't it? For all the hype it must suck to know the best you can do is the ing Cotton Bowl. At least Franchione found a way to score against the evil Stoops this season, despite the lack of prestige of his program...Aggy Fran knows that he robbed the bank and can tell his team to "hold the rope" while he goes to a more prestigious team next year.
Lost to Baylor some?
as for
From the period of 1952 to 1974 UT went 21-2 vs the aggroids, I believe that is after WW1. And a bit better than the aggys so called "unprecedented" little run from 84-94. Unprecedented for them I guess.Congrats on the dominance before WWI. Impressive.
Oh if you want the real record for pre-WW1 it was 8-5-2. So yeah thats when we piled up all those wins.
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