These Coaches Know Both Sides of the Texas–Texas A&M Rivalry

There are actually three former Texas A&M coaches now in charge of teams at the University of Texas: Schaefer, Schlossnagle, and women’s tennis coach Howard Joffe, who blazed the trail down Texas Highway 21 in June of 2015. “The move is believed to be unprecedented,” Ryan Autullo of the Austin American-Statesman wrote at the time. “The first time a head coach from one of the schools left for a head coaching position at the other.”

But even before Schlossnagle became the second such defector, the rival schools had already shared custody of two great coaches, and in the sport where passions run highest: football. The College Football Hall of Famer who invented the Twelfth Man, Dana X. Bible, also coached at Texas. And the offensive coordinator who came up with UT’s vaunted wishbone offense under Darrell K. Royal, Emory Bellard, went on to become the head coach and athletic director at Texas A&M. After all, the Aggies and Longhorns share a sibling rivalry. And for the coaches, college sports have always been about business.

Because his tenure predated college football’s television era—or, for that matter, television—Dana Xenophon Bible does not live in the college football fan’s imagination in quite the same way as Royal or Bear Bryant. Author W. K. Stratton wondered why in his book Backyard Brawl: Inside the Blood Feud Between Texas and Texas A&M; Stratton wrote that Dan Jenkins told him it might have been because Bible “came off a little bit on the stuffy side.”

DXB, as we would surely be calling him today, became the Texas A&M head coach in 1917, then took one year off to serve in World War I before returning and staying until 1928. He led the Aggies to three undefeated seasons, five Southwest Conference championships, and, in 1919 and 1927, two retroactive national championships from the days before the Associated Press started naming national champs, in 1936. By the time A&M won its first official crown, in 1939, Bible was coaching the Longhorns.

And of course, on January 2, 1922, Bible began the Twelfth Man tradition, as the team found itself with a short roster in the Dixie Classic (before it was known as the Cotton Bowl). The coach called on E. King Gill—a former Aggie running back who’d played for half a season but then switched his focus exclusively to basketball (he was all-SWC and captain of the A&M team in 1924)—to suit up and be ready if needed. He wasn’t, but the concept sure did stick.

Bible left A&M to coach at Nebraska after the 1928 season, creating a buffer between his time in College Station and his 1937 arrival in Austin, which meant he didn’t have to deal with angry Western Union telegrams. Bible coached until 1946, with three Southwest Conference championships over his last five seasons. The 1941 team, which upset then-second-ranked and undefeated A&M, was deemed the unofficial national champion by two computer-system rankings (although UT hasn’t claimed the title). Bible’s last team, the 1946 squad, also featured a freshman from Luling by the name of Emory Bellard.

Bible went 72–19–9 at A&M and 63–31–3 at Texas, as well as 50–15–7 at Nebraska. When he retired from coaching football, in 1946, his 201 wins (including from stints at Mississippi College and LSU), put him behind only Amos Alonzo Stagg and Pop Warner for the most victories in NCAA history. He was inducted into the Longhorns’ Hall of Honor in 1960 and the Texas A&M Athletic Hall Fame in 1966 (A&M’s hall didn’t start until 1964). 

Having been born in 1961, Vic Schaefer wasn’t old enough to see a Bible team—or even remember UT’s first national championship, under Royal, in 1963 (and the controversial A&M game that preceded it). But his family made a tradition out of attending the rivalry games, and he grew up rooting for the Aggies alongside his father, Charles (an A&M graduate, U.S. Army colonel, and World War II veteran); his mother, Dot (a U.S. Navy nurse); and his older sister, Elaine.

“She thought Thanksgiving meant eating at the Wyatt’s Cafeteria in Austin or College Station,” Schaefer says of his sister. “That’s all she knew. And then I came along and we did the same thing. My parents didn’t miss a Thanksgiving Day football game for thirty straight years.

“For Texas history, that game has always been such a vital part of both institutions,” Schaefer continues. “I’ve seen a lot of it, and have really been honored to be a part of it. At the end of the day, nobody knows ‘The Eyes of Texas’ better than me—whether I heard it on one side or the other.”

Since Schaefer grew up rooting for the Aggies, his family’s memories of the game itself were not often happy. Schaefer says his father used to have a Polaroid photo on his desk of the scoreboard at Memorial Stadium in Austin after the 1956 contest: Texas A&M 34, Texas 21. That was the Aggies’ only win between 1952 and 1966, and one of only three between 1940 and 1974.

“It was not-so-glorious time for A&M, but a very glorious time for Texas,” Schaefer says. And now that he’s an Orangeblood, he can revel a bit more in those memories of watching Longhorn legends such as quarterback Eddie Phillips and fullback Steve Worster run UT’s wishbone offense during the heyday of the Royal era. Schaefer also gets to play both sides of the rivalry in his memory a little bit, having watched Emory Bellard coach the Aggies teams from 1972 through 1978. Bellard’s A&M squads beat the Longhorns in 1975 and 1976 to deliver the school its first two-year streak in the rivalry since 1910.

As a coach, regardless of which side he has found himself representing, Schaefer finds the rivalry somewhat less intense than he did as a spectator. “Here’s the thing—you get it out of the way the first five minutes,” he says. He reckons that in basketball, once you hit the first TV time-out, the hype and nervousness wear off. In football, it’s the same thing after each team has had the ball. And the players who will be lining up across from one another at Kyle Field this November 30 are barely old enough to remember 2011, let alone the century of enmity that preceded the most recent UT-A&M game. Unless they grew up with parents or grandparents who bleed maroon and white or burnt orange, it’s just another game to them.

“Kids are kids,” Schaefer says. “These kids today have no idea what the history and tradition is, and what that rivalry even looks like. But the fans know, and that’s what will make it so special—the electricity in this state.”

That energy will be juiced even further by the postseason stakes attached to this year’s contest. Not only will fans pour into College Station for the first Texas–Texas A&M game in thirteen years, but also, if the current SEC standings and tiebreaker scenarios hold, the teams will be vying for a chance to play in the SEC championship game.

Schaefer won’t be at the game this year—he’ll be with the UT women’s hoops team at a tournament in Florida. But he knows what kind of atmosphere awaits Coach Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns football squad. “I’m excited,” he says. “I’m great friends with Sark and his staff. Love those guys, and really love his team. I know they’ll be prepared.” He also predicts that, seeing as how this year’s A&M-LSU game attracted the third-largest crowd in Kyle Field history, with 108,851 watching in person, November 30 will break the attendance record set in 2014, when A&M and Ole Miss drew 110,633 fans.

“I’m going to bet the fire marshal will be somewhere having dinner, and he won’t be nowhere to be found,” Schaefer jokes, imagining the lengths to which Aggies and Longhorns will go to see the game live. “Somebody’s gonna leave the back gate open.”