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It is a known fact that we here at BC just love us some analogizing.
So Eyes’ post on the state of Aggie Football brought to mind an analogy that might help explain to our Aggie Brethren just where they fit on the football food chain.
Look to the Big 10.
Ohio State is to Michigan as Oklahoma is to Texas.
Michigan State is to Michigan as Texas A&M is to Texas.
Or to put it another way:
Ohio State & OKlahoma = Darth Vadar & the Death Star.
Michigan State & Texas A&M = Goofy in-laws
TOP RIVALS
Any list of college football’s greatest rivalries includes Texas-OU and Michigan-Ohio State. These are interstate matchups that generate passion and heat that last throughout the year. The outcome frequently has conference and national implications.
Texas leads the overall series with OU 59-40-5.
Michigan leads the overall series with Ohio State 57-42-6
Since 1950, Texas leads the series 30-27-3
Since 1950 Ohio State leads the series 30-27-2
They are bitter, long-standing rivalries where careers are made - or broken - with win streaks, and where individual contests can be talked about for generations.
A little story about the Ohio State-Michigan Rivalry. In 1975, Baylor went to Michigan in early September. The Bears played the Wolverines to a 14-14 tie. The next Monday, Grant Teaff was in a staff meeting when his secretary came and said Ohio State’s Woody Hayes was on the line and insisted on talking to him.
Teaff took the call and Hayes immediately peppered him with questions about the game, questions about what Michigan did on certain down and distances, what were their defensive tendancies, etc.
After a few questions, Teaff Finally said,
Woody, I’ll be glad to send you the game film, and go into detail over what happened some other time, but you don’t play Michigan until the end of the season.
Hayes paused and then replied, Grant, we play Michigan every Monday.
Losing streaks in these rivalries can get you fired or pushed out the door, no matter how many total wins you have (see Wilkinson, Bud - Royal, Darrell - Cooper, John - Carr, Lloyd.)
INTRASTATE RIVALRIES
Family Feuds. Contests where your in-state rival wants the game to mean more to you than it really does. Games where you generally win, and when you lose it is irritating, but not to the extent that your out-of-state rival gets to you. A losing streak in this series can really piss you off, but again, it doesn’t bring the DEFCOM Level 4 Angst that a losing streak to OU or Ohio State brings those fan bases.
Texas leads the series with A&M 74-36-5 a 67% winning percentage.
Michigan leads its series with Michigan State 67-30-5 for a winning percentage of 68%.
Both Michigan State and Texas A&M have had their moments, and both owe them to a duo of coaches.
MICHIGAN vs. MICHGAN STATE
Between 1950 and 1968, Michigan State had its Golden Era. Clarence “Biggie” Munn was the coach from 1947-53, followed by Duffy Daugherty. Munn took a couple of years to get the program going, but by 1950 Michigan State was winning on a regular basis.
From 1950-1968 Michigan State won three National Championships, and went 125-49-4 for a 71% winning percentage. Included in that record was a 13-4-2 mark against Michigan.
Duffy Daugherty & his predecessor, Biggie Munn accounted for almost half of Michigan State’s wins over Michigan.
After the 1968 season Michigan hired Bo Schembechler. Since then the Wolverines have gone 31-12 against their in-state rivals. Earlier this season, the Spartans celebrated back-to-back wins in the series for the first time since Schembechler was hired.
TEXAS vs TEXAS A&M
The Aggies high water mark came during the Jackie Sherrill/R.C. Slocum run from 1984-94. Texas A&M was 101-29 for a winning percentage of 78% It included the 10-1 record against Texas, along with six conference titles.
Jackie Sherrill and FedEx helped turn the tide in the Texas series for the Aggies in the mid-80’s.
Sherrill and Slocum combined to go 12-9 against Texas, which means they have accounted for a 3rd of all the Aggie wins against the Longhorns.
From 1995, Texas has a 10-4 series record, which at 71% is close to the historical winning percentage for the Horns.
Texas and Michigan are two of the winningest programs of all time. They are used to being a key target to just about everyone they play.
The Longhorns and Wolverines also have bitter rivals that are at the top of their hit list — and their intrastate rivals aren’t it — and never have been.
Veritas said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
FWIW, Michigan and Texas are THE two winningest programs in CFB history.
Great analysis.
magnusbleuveigner said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Damn, the similarity was just brought up a couple of hours ago and you already have this up? That’s amaizing (just for you UM fans).
“From 1950-1968 Michigan State won three National Championships,”
Obviously not all the similarities are close Aggie.
bigdukesix said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I’ve been referring to MSU as “East Lansing Aggie” for years, but generally directed at an annoying MSU fan I know here in Austin who’s always crowing about how Sparty is going to surpass UM in football. The similarities are uncanny.
Nordberg said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Cool, now do Alabama/Auburn. Similar deal.
parlin said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Also in support of the analogy: John Engler, Michigan’s governor from 1991-2003, was a graduate of Michigan State, and channeled a lot of money to his alma mater. We’ve seen a lot of similar school partisanship from Texas’s current governor.
Bob in Houston said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:33 pm
“I’ve been referring to MSU as “East Lansing Aggie” for years, but generally directed at an annoying MSU fan I know here in Austin who’s always crowing about how Sparty is going to surpass UM in football. The similarities are uncanny.”
Michigan State was known for decades as Michigan Agricultural College, and were the Aggies.
srr is correct… there is a similar desperate need for attention when it comes to Michigan State fans trying to get noticed by Michigan. By and large, it doesn’t happen. However, I think Mark Dantonio has a chance to do something quite good there.
It has been interesting to see MSU dominate U-M in basketball the last 10 years… U-M fans responded by ignoring hoops. We’ll see if they start to care now that Beilein has U-M back in the rankings. If anything, most Texas fans already care very little about basketball. If A&M surpassed Texas in basketball (which I don’t expect), it wouldn’t matter in terms of the rivalry.
One vital point of separation. MSU grads never developed a sense of insular superiority that the Ags have. Thank God.
illhangupandlisten said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:22 pm
“The Aggies high water mark came during the Jackie Sherrill/R.C. Slocum run from 1984-94. Texas A&M was 101-29 for a winning percentage of 78% It included the 10-1 record against Texas, along with six conference titles. ”
I’m confused, must be the beer.
Reality returns said:
October 24th, 2009 at 2:44 am
Wow.
I walk away for a moment and you guys start high fiving each other over your analogies.
It’s interesting though, in your game against your biggest rival, how you sang the verse “It’s goodbye to A&M” over and over while playing them.
Or how when you beat them you don’t light your tower any differently than when you beat anyone else (however when you beat A&M you light it for the equivalent of a championship).
Or how your torchlight parade tradition started. Tell me more!
Or how you created a hand sign in envy of A&M’s.
The reality is A&M is down this year and OU was ranked at the time of your game.
After the 06 and 07 games, there were numerous Horns who remembered their biggest rival once again.
A&M is similar to Mich. St. in that they are both land grand institutions. But the A&M -texas rivalry is much closer to Alabama Auburn than Mich. Mich St.
johnnymac said:
October 24th, 2009 at 3:32 am
Jesus Christ, dude, you are a walking and talking technical drawing. Somebody says something and you demonstrate it.
This isn’t about whether A&M and Texas are rivals. They are. But Aggie is no longer Texas’s “biggest rival”, despite your evidence of a song that’s 80 years old.
This is about Aggie having an overinflated opinion of himself and being obsessed with Big Brother and demanding attention that he doesn’t necessarily deserve.
hopefulhorn said:
October 24th, 2009 at 6:15 am
Good analogy-both manage to do less with more (talent, facilities, emphasis) than most others in their respective conferences.
TaylorTRoom said:
October 24th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Reality Returns posted: “It’s interesting though, in your game against your biggest rival, how you sang the verse “It’s goodbye to A&M” over and over while playing them.
Or how when you beat them you don’t light your tower any differently than when you beat anyone else (however when you beat A&M you light it for the equivalent of a championship).
Or how your torchlight parade tradition started. Tell me more!
Or how you created a hand sign in envy of A&M’s.”
The answer is simple. Those customs started when the rivalry was more collegial. A lot of Ags, tauht to hate UT, have no idea how much cooperation the universities used to have, out of a recognized mutual need.
Do you know where UT had its first organizing meeting for the Memorial Stadium fundraising drive in the ’20s? At the TAMC fieldhouse, before the football game on Thanksgiving. The Ags were happy to host it, because they recognized that the best way to get their own stadium drive started was for Texas to build one.
Do you know the argument that TAMC used to get one third of the PUF? They argued that they were entitled to half, because the state constitution set TAMC up as a branch of UT (yes, I know TAMC opened first- the branch business was TAMC’s argument). The Ags wanted half, Texas was willing to concede a quarter, and it was going to court until a Texas BOR president thought, “Hell, they’re all Texas boys.” and agreed to a third.
The rivalry took a nast turn when TAMU moved away from being an all-male military school. It has, in form, become less and less distinct from Texas, and its shortcomings in comparison (that didn’t matter to Ags when it was obviously a unique school)grated on them more and more. TAMU has males, females, and a small ROTC program, just like Texas.
BEHorn said:
October 24th, 2009 at 8:19 am
My main takeaway from this is that Duffy Daughterty looks like a Rust Belt Mr. Miyagi, minus the goatee. That, and it’s pretty cool to have coaches named “Biggie” and “Duffy” back-to-back.
As far as “Reality” goes: “The reality is A&M is down this year and OU was ranked at the time of your game.” Whaddaya mean, “this” year? Hey, Reality — last year, the year before, the year before, etc., are calling. They want to know why you don’t remember them.
trkhorn said:
October 24th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Like Michigan, Texas Football is a brand. It’s why, for example, Spanish radio stations in Northern Mexico carry our games to listeners who will probably never set foot in Austin but are diehard Longhorn fans nonetheless. Aggies hate this and decry it as the “t-shirt fan” phenomenon.
Texas Football and the University are connected, no doubt, but not to the point of ridiculous the way TAMU and TAMU football are. Everything is tied to idiotic Aggieland traditions which almost solely focus on hatred of all things UT. This is also their downfall.
Hey at least Michigan State has some pretty decent rivalries w/Notre Dame and more recently Penn State, and have actually won some of these games. TAMU can point to wins over us in 06 and 07 and I’m sure they’ll step up and give us a game this year, but what else have they done? As much as we talk about rivalries, the fact is, every game is equally important. Mack understands this, the team understands it, the majority of the fan base understands it. Aggies will never understand it.
TAMU has all the resources to build a brand and football program as we have done, but it will likely never happen. Silly traditions and hatred of UT will always interfere w/the long-term success of Texas A&M Football.
Bill Byrne said:
October 24th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Don’t forget that next Saturday is Bat Night!!
ghostofagroundgame said:
October 24th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I guess the thing I think about is how the actual student body/fanbase feels about the “rivalry.” I went to Texas for undergrad and law school, in succession, and attended games regularly from 1997 - 2004. There was never any particular heat surrounding the A & M game. In fact, even when we lost that game the discussion was about the implications on our drive at a Big 12 title or bowl placing, not on losing to A & M. This surprised me at first, having been raised by an Aggie. But genuinely, UT cares deeply about the OU game, and far, far less about the secondary rivalries with Tech and A & M.
The truth is, the Aggies have never gotten over the 60’s. Everyone in Austin was getting laid, seeing Willie, partying in natural beauty with women, protesting for integration, etc. Meanwhile, A & M was a military school which was fervently against everything Austin stood for/stands for. As these things go, the resentment remains largely one-sided. UT looks out at the world — A & M looks up at UT with envy and frustration.
Cricketslayer said:
October 24th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Reality,
Nobody is saying that A&M isn’t a rival of Texas. Do I want to beat A&M? Of course. But if you think a loss to the Aggies hurts as much as falling to OU, you’re out of mind. And frankly, it’s something you could never begin to understand because of your singular focus on Texas.
Using a “hand signal” and a line in a fight song are fairly shallow examples of justifying what you wish to be true. You assume that because you’ve been brainwashed to hate all things “tu” that we MUST feel the same. We just don’t.
Ag_in_TX said:
October 26th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON
htmfh
dick said:
October 26th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
the brit equivalent to DEFCON is BIKINI?