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Texas and Texas A&M may be willing to let the rivalry die, but the Texas legislature may not

matt hinton

For certain powerful people in Austin, the prospect of continuing the century-old rivalry between Texas and Texas A&M in the wake of the Aggies' departure for the SEC next year is a little… "problematic." Which is why certain other powerful people in Austin are feeling compelled to eliminate the problem:

State Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said he will file legislation during the 83rd session of the Texas Legislature in 2013 to instruct both Texas A&M and UT to continue their longstanding Thanksgiving football game.

Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton, will sponsor the legislation in the Texas House, according to a press release from Williams' office. [Here is the release — ed.]

"This football series began in 1894, and I don't think it's time to stop this rivalry," Williams stated in the release. "The game has served as an important family tradition for millions of Texans throughout the century, and it's important we preserve this great tradition."

As you may have guessed, Williams and Otto are both former Aggies (they were both A&M accounting majors, in fact) following the company line: Officially, Texas A&M wants to keep playing the game, and wants to keep playing it on Thanksgiving weekend, where it's been fixed on the schedule since 1916. In 110 Aggie-Longhorn games since 1902, only one — a 0-0 tie in Dallas on Oct. 12, 1907 — has been played before the calendar turned to November, and even then they got together again for a rematch in Austin on Nov. 28 of the same year. Calling on that history, TAMU officials have been waxing rhapsodic about passing the torch:

"We want to make it abundantly clear we will play the game anywhere, any time," the new Texas A&M chancellor [John Sharp] told me Monday morning. "If that game dies, it will not be on us. That game is bigger than Texas and bigger than A&M. That game belongs to the people of Texas, and if it goes away, it's not going to be on our watch."

The Aggies are on record as saying they want to continue the series, come rain, shine or the Longhorn Network. A&M's president and chancellor both say they want to play Texas every year.

A&M's head coach? Yeah, not so much: "We'll be sad," Mike Sherman said on Monday, essentially conceding he'd rather write an obituary for the old rivalry than have to deal with playing the Longhorns between the end of the SEC schedule and (assuming he ever gets there) the SEC Championship Game, "but new rivalries come up." Actually, coach, when you're talking about grudge matches that are 117 years old, they don't.{YSP:MORE}

Whatever they're saying in public, Sherman's bosses may ultimately feel the same way. But even if they're bluffing, at least A&M is officially on the side of preservation. No one with a title at Texas has said anything of the sort, the official line apparently amounting to athletic director DeLoss Dodds' oft-repeated adjective: It's "problematic." Not because it has to be, of course, not logistically: Within the SEC alone, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina all handle the logistics of playing an in-state, non-conference rival on Thanksgiving weekend just fine, thanks, as do USC and Stanford in their alternating November dates with Notre Dame. Texas and Oklahoma played as non-conference rivals for 80 years; Texas A&M is just three years into a 10-year contract with Arkansas that's about to become a conference game, freeing up a non-conference spot the Longhorns could easily fill with a few phone calls if they had a mind to. The fact that they don't — and that it may take the force of state law to convince them otherwise — may be an even clearer indication of the rift in the state than A&M's decision to abandon ship in the first place.

Even if the legislature is so inclined, it will be a while before it's so empowered: Texas lawmakers only convene in odd-numbered years, meaning they won't even have an opportunity to open the floor for debate until the next session opens in 2013. By then, maybe cooler, more nostalgic heads will have prevailed to save the tradition. Then again, if the series goes on hiatus for the first time in 110 years in 2012 without an appearance from the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, maybe they'll realize they can actually get along just fine without it.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.