Justin Tucker’s reign is finally at an end.
Before he was the best kicker in the NFL, Tucker made what then seemed like it might be history as the man responsible for the final play of the last, game-winning drive in the last-ever Texas–Texas A&M game.
Texas 27, Texas A&M 25, the scoreboard in College Station read on Thanksgiving night, 2011, with Tucker’s forty-yard field goal as time expired giving the Longhorns bragging rights in seeming perpetuity—even if the Aggies were too busy chanting “S-E-C” to hear the trash talk.
But now—oh, what the heck, let’s say it—Texas–Texas A&M is back, with both teams in the Southeast Conference. Which means that on November 30, someone in either burnt orange or maroon and white will supplant Tucker as the hero, just as Tucker and others supplanted those before them. The legends of the rivalry are also legends of the programs, because even if you weren’t an All-American or an all-time great, standing out in the most important game on the schedule was big enough.
This list is a mix of the rivalry’s sung and unsung heroes, whether they were part of an especially memorable contest, had one great play or record-setting performance, or, in some cases, didn’t come out on the winning side. Some of the most obvious choices and biggest stars are absent, while many more just couldn’t be included.
And, of course, the likes of Johnny Manziel, Christian Kirk, Sam Ehlinger, and Bijan Robinson never got the chance to play in a Longhorns-Aggies grudge match. May that never happen again!
Earl “Bama” Smith (1939)
The Aggies wrapped up an undefeated season to win the school’s first national championship. Fullback John Kimbrough—who was also briefly in the movies and served one term in the Texas Legislature—was the offensive star on a defensively dominant team, but this game was also about Smith and the infamous “hideout” play, which gave the Aggies their first touchdown after a scoreless first half.
The trick call found Smith making for the sidelines, as if to exit the game, but then actually hanging back on the field, uncovered, resulting in a short pass from quarterback Marion Pugh followed by an unimpeded scamper to the end zone. (A&M eventually won, 20–0.) The duo did it again for a touchdown in the 1941 Cotton Bowl, after which the NCAA tweaked its rule book to prevent such chicanery.
Madame Hipple (1941)
Heading into the 1941 game, Texas had lost or (in one case) tied eight straight games at Kyle Field, dating back to 1923. And prior to this contest, the Aggies were 8–0 and ranked second in the country, while the Horns, despite having held the top spot earlier in the season after a 6–0 start, had dropped all the way to number ten, following a tie with Baylor and a loss to TCU.
Desperate to reverse that mojo, a group of UT students enlisted local fortune teller Madame Augusta Hipple, who suggested they burn red candles to put a hex on Aggie’s chances.
The Horns not only won, but did so in unexpectedly crushing fashion, 23–0. What became an annual tradition known as the Hex Rally jump-started a 9–0–1 stretch for UT in the rivalry.
Tommy Wade (1963)
Played less than a week after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, this game did not exactly unify or heal fans. A&M was 2–6–1 at the time, while UT was 9–0 and ranked first in the country.
But in a rivalry game, you never know, right? The Aggies led 13–3 early in the fourth quarter, and by the end, A&M was holding on at 13–9. (UT scored a touchdown but failed on the two-point conversion.) Then Texas quarterback Tommy Wade put together an eighty-yard touchdown drive in the game’s final minutes—but not before throwing one or (depending on whom you ask) two interceptions.
First, Wade threw a pick to A&M’s John Brotherton, who then fumbled the ball, enabling UT to regain possession. A few plays later, A&M’s Jim Willenborg corralled a Wade pass near the sideline, but the officials ruled he didn’t have complete possession of the ball before stepping out of bounds.
In College Station, footage of that play has been pored over more than the Zapruder tape, and the play is considered clear-cut evidence of the refs favoring the favorite. With the 15–13 win, Darrell K. Royal and the Horns won their first national championship, and UT also beat up on number two Navy in the Cotton Bowl for good measure.
Ken “Dude” McLean (1965)
Sometimes you can be a legend even when you lose. Especially if your name is Dude.
McLean, who would go on to become a prominent Houston lawyer, had 250 receiving yards in this 21–17 Longhorns victory, including the longest catch for either team in the history of the rivalry. The 91-yard bomb was thrown by wide receiver Jim Kaufman on a trick play called the the Texas Special. The play required A&M quarterback Harry Ledbetter to essentially bounce a pass behind the line of scrimmage while Kaufman pretended to be disappointed at the incompletion. Except, a pass behind the line of scrimmage is officially a lateral—and therefore a live ball. By the time that sunk in with the Longhorns’ defense, Kaufman had picked up the pigskin and hit a wide-open McLean deep in the secondary. The Dude abides.
Jackie Sherrill (1984)
It took a while for Aggies Coach Jackie Sherrill to meet the expectations of his six-year, $1.7 million contract, which was then the most expensive deal in NCAA history. (These days, the same money wouldn’t buy you half of a defensive line coach, or three months of Jimbo Fisher’s buyout).
The Aggies were just 6–5 in Sherrill’s third season, but win number six was priceless, a 37–12 romp that was the first in a stretch in which A&M won ten of its next eleven matchups with UT, through 1994. He also created the 12th Man Kickoff Team (an entire walk-on special-teams squad), changed the vibes at Kyle Field, and, oh yeah, led the program into NCAA probation before resigning in 1988. In other words, Sherrill was a statesmanlike hero of Southwest Conference football who remains a beloved College Station fixture to this day.
He also managed to bring both his flair for the dramatic and his history with the Longhorns to his next job, at Mississippi State, where he infamously had a bull calf castrated in front of his players before a 1992 game against UT.
Greg Hill and Rodney Thomas (1992)
Sherrill was succeeded as head coach by former defensive coordinator R. C. Slocum, who first joined the A&M coaching staff in 1972. Slocum built the Aggies’ “Wrecking Crew” defense; won three straight Southwest Conference titles, from 1991 to 1993; and finished his career, in 2002, as the school’s winningest coach of all time. He’s also proven to be somewhat irreplaceable (at least so far).
The ’92 team, which went 12–0 before the Cotton Bowl, was the best one of that era, with a defense spearheaded by tackle Sam Adams, linebacker Marcus Buckley, and cornerback Aaron Glenn, whose 95-yard interception return against UT was the final touchdown in the Aggies’ 34–13 win (and, yes, a record in the rivalry).
But before that play, the Aggies offense scored on the ground—Rodney Thomas ran the ball for three touchdowns, while Greg Hill capped off his second season with more than one thousand rushing yards. Hill and several other players later missed the Cotton Bowl, having been suspended for NCAA rule violations that would now be accepted as standard practice in college football’s name, image, and likeness (NIL) era.
Ja’mar Toombs (1999)
This was the rare A&M-UT tilt that did unify and heal fans—the game played eight days after the Aggie bonfire tragedy. What was then the largest crowd in Texas football history saw the two teams come together to mourn and honor the twelve individuals killed in the collapse, after a week in which many A&M players were also personally involved in clearing logs.
The Hex Rally, in Austin, became a “unity rally,” with many Aggies—including then–Texas Lieutenant Governor Rick Perry and then–Texas A&M student body president Will Hurd—in attendance alongside UT coaches and players. Then, at yell practice in College Station, the usual “beat the hell out of t.u.” chant didn’t happen.
The Aggies trailed at halftime, 16–6, but then A&M running back Ja’Mar Toombs, who would finish with 126 yards, rushed for his second touchdown of the game, setting the stage for a TD pass from Randy McCown to Matt Bumgardner early in the fourth quarter that gave the Aggies a 20–16 lead, which they’d hold until the final whistle. Emotionally, an A&M victory was the only possible correct ending.
The Wrecking Crew (2006)
A&M bounced back from the previous year’s loss to the Longhorns’ Vince Young–led national championship team in a defensive classic. The Aggies took an early 6–0 lead, harassed a young Colt McCoy into three interceptions, and sacked UT’s future NFL quarterback four times.
That didn’t stop the Horns from taking a 7–6 lead in the third quarter, but then Stephen McGee led a sixteen-play, 88-yard touchdown drive to put the Aggies up 12–7 with 2:31 left in the game. The Horns’ own stout defense got them two more chances to score in that window, but McCoy threw his third interception on the first drive, and then A&M defensive lineman Michael Bennett knocked the UT signal-caller out of the game on a late hit during the Longhorns’ second possession. McCoy’s backup, Jevan Snead, entered the game with 20 seconds left, and the Aggies intercepted him too.
Cyrus Gray (2010)
On an A&M team best known for future NFL great Von Miller, Gray was an under-the-radar star (at least outside of College Station). The running back gained a thousand-plus yards in both 2010 and 2011 and finished his career third on A&M’s all-time rushing yards list. (He has since been passed by Trayveon Williams, but Gray still holds the Aggie record for combined yardage on rushing, receiving, and kick returns.)
In this game, Gray led the Aggies to their last win in the rivalry’s Big 12 era. His 84-yard touchdown run tied the game at 7–7 in the first half. Then, when the Horns narrowed the score to 17–14 with less than five minutes to go, a 35-yard Coryell Judie kickoff return followed by a 48-yard touchdown run from Gray put the game out of reach, with a final score of 24–17 in favor of A&M. The DeSoto-raised Gray finished the day with 223 rushing yards.
Carrington Byndom and Quandre Diggs (2011)
Well, we already know about Justin Tucker. And he doesn’t get to make that time-expired kick if not for Case McCoy, whose 25-yard scramble set it up (along with a personal foul call on A&M’s Trent Hunter that Case’s older brother, if not anyone in maroon and white, probably applauded).
But the Horns’ win was fueled by defense, and by defensive players stepping up on special teams. A&M, behind future NFL quarterback Ryan Tannehill, led the game 16–7 at halftime before Carrington Byndom’s 58-yard interception return for a touchdown made it 16–14. Quandre Diggs had an interception, two kickoff returns, and four punt returns; the returns included an 81-yarder to set up a field goal that gave UT a 17–16 lead in the third quarter and a 29-yard return to start the drive that ended with Tucker’s winning kick to put the Horns ahead, 27–25. They would never trail again—for thirteen years.
