When Texas A&M and Texas take to the gridiron at Kyle Field on Nov. 30, it will mark the return of one of the nation’s biggest football rivalries — and one that this year has major playoff and Southeastern Conference implications.
But it will not mark the return of the rivalry in all of its forms. In the 13 years since Justin Tucker’s 40-yard field goal and A&M’s move to the SEC marked the end of the annual football series, the intensity has only grown with each meeting between the two schools.
Especially in just about every non-NCAA competition you can imagine — from the rugby pitch, to soccer fields and even the racetrack.
“The other team wants to kill you just as much as you want to kill them,” environmental design senior and men’s rugby player Rodrigo Munoz-Ledo said. “The rivalry is 100% there. They understand that we’re there to put on the show, and they’re there to switch up the role … When you play UT, it’s a whole nother animal.”
As a senior, Munoz-Ledo has played against the Longhorns four times and not lost once — something he puts on his list of his proudest moments as an athlete.
“I’ve had the fortune of being able to play rugby all over the world,” Munoz-Ledo said. “I’ve been able to play in Spain and New Zealand … but I can say that one of my biggest achievements is not losing to UT, because that’s one thing we’ve always been proud of. We always put our heads together and we always put on a little magic for the UT game, because we know how much it matters to our fans.”
For club sports like the men’s rugby and men’s soccer, the crowds at Penberthy Rec Sports Complex may not match the size of other venues — but both can count on the Texas game to be a fun environment, no matter what.
“Whether it’s a home game where we play at A&M or it’s away where we play in Austin, it’s an incredible environment,” supply chain management senior and men’s soccer captain Cedric Van Der Donckt said. “That’s also the game where we get the most fans out of all our games. There’s over 100 people on the sidelines. It just means a lot, and a lot more to us for that game specifically.”
And it’s those fans — the ones who may not be familiar with the different clubs sports programs but will show up to see the Aggies face the Longhorns in just about anything — that make the games special.
“That was one of the biggest crowds we’ve ever had, just in terms of people just showing up and just being absolutely rowdy about it,” Munoz-Ledo said. “People really came out because they saw we were playing against UT. And I mean, all of them said the same thing at the end. It was like, ‘Oh my goodness, thank you for telling me about this.’”
That rivalry sets the tone of the year for the men’s soccer program, Van Der Donckt said.
“Our ability to beat Texas, I feel like that defines our season,” Van Der Donckt said. “If we lose to them, we often see our season as a failure. But if we’re able to win, it’s a great achievement for us as a club.”
The intensity between the two schools stretches far beyond the confines of Penberthy and into the academic world as well. Just look at A&M’s chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
A&M SAE competes in several competitions that involve designing, building and driving their own vehicles, from single-seater formula cars to baja buggies. As one of the state’s leading programs along with Texas, the opportunity to compete for an engineering crown is a challenge the organization is eager to take on.
“It’s one thing with athletics, but [SAE] gives the whole school almost dominance in every aspect,” mechanical engineering senior and A&M SAE president Phillip Bertschy said. “ … When it comes to our project and the academics and the engineering involved with that, we’re building a better car. We’re building the faster car. I think it puts us on the map, and it shows that, engineering wise, we’re doing something right.”
Bertschy says the A&M program operates with less resources than their Texas competition — which makes the victories over the Longhorns all the more sweeter.
“We shouldn’t be beating them,” Bertschy said. “They operate on higher budgets than us. They have more people on their teams, they have bigger shop spaces, they have some better shop times and whatnot. They have a lot more resources than us, and we’re still beating them. Sometimes that gets lost because we’re so dominant.”
And as the football game returns to College Station this season, Bertschy hopes that the tone SAE and other programs have set over the decade-plus hiatus extends to the gridiron.
“I hope that our success on the engineering side of things can hopefully push over into the athletic side of things,” Bertschy said. “That goes back to the sense of ‘I believe we’re the better school entirely.’ I have a lot of pride. I love A&M and it’s good to see us winning and beating them because they do get a lot of recognition when I feel like we should be the ones getting recognized.”
