Battle of the Brazos

The Battle of the Brazos was the official collegiate sports rivalry between the Baylor Bears and Texas A&M Aggies. The rivalry is named for the Brazos River that flows by the two schools, which are only 90 miles apart. The Battle of the Brazos debuted in 1899.

History
In the early days of the rivalry (1905 and earlier), Baylor and Texas A&M played each other multiple times in a single year, possibly due to a dearth of regional opponents.

In the early days of the rivalry, Texas A&M was an all-male college, and Baylor was the closest college that had female students. Many Baylor coeds chose to date Aggies causing some resentment among the male students at Baylor, who did not have a corresponding pool of young women from Texas A&M to date. Legendary Baylor Coach Grant Teaff, when asked about the origin of the rivalry stated that, “There was a great deal of resentment from Baylor boys on campus because they weren’t any girls at A&M. The Aggies would come here and grab the Baylor beauties. That has something to do with the feud.”

The Brawl
The 1926 football game coincided with Baylor's homecoming. During halftime Baylor Homecoming floats paraded around the field. When a float - actually a car pulling a flatbed trailer with several female Baylor students - neared the section where the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets sat, a cadet raced towards the car to try to steer it away. The motion caused Louise Normand to fall off the truck, injuring her and inciting a large riot. Students began using metal folding chairs and planks of wood that had been used as yard markers for weapons. Texas A&M student Lt. Charles Sessums was hit over the head with a chair in the melee and, although he initially appeared to recover, he died following the game.

On December 8, 1926, the two school presidents agreed to temporarily suspend athletic relations between the schools. The schools would not compete against each other in any athletic event for the next four years. Baylor and Texas A&M would not meet in football again until 1931.

Pranks
In 1936 Baylor students awoke to find Texas A&M signs plastered across campus, with red paint applied to turn the Baylor flagpole into a barber pole. A huge sign on Waco Hall predicted, "A and M 50, Baylor 0."

In 1950, Aggies snuck into the new Baylor Stadium, then under construction, to plant oats in the gridiron grass in order to have the sprouting plants spell out the letters “A and M.”

It was once great sport before a big football matchup for Aggie students to drive to Waco with nefarious intentions of capturing Baylor's bear mascot. Baylor students sometimes resorted to extraordinary defensive measures. In 1946 they placed mascot Chita in the custody of Waco Police so the Aggies could not find her.

In the 1950s, two Aggie students drove to Waco and stole the Baylor mascot, a young bear cub, from the Baylor campus. While they were driving back to College Station in a brand–new car belonging to one of their families, the bear became terrified. Twenty–miles from Waco, the bear ripped out the inside of the car, and the boys set it free. The young men were caught when they took the car to be repaired.

In 1954, Baylor mascot Nip and her trailer disappeared. Yet, the next day both the bear and trailer were found under a bridge on the highway to College Station.

Baylor students likewise pranked the Aggies, often sneaking onto the Texas A&M campus to spray green paint on the statue of Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Ross was the third president of Texas A&M, who briefly attended Baylor as a preparatory student before transferring to and obtaining a graduate degree from the Wesleyan University in Florence, Alabama.

Former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose daughter later graduated from Texas A&M, was expelled from Baylor after he was in part found painting one of A&M's buildings green.

Football
The competitive peak of the series between Baylor and Texas A&M most likely occurred between 1960 and 1990 during which time Baylor won 13 games, A&M won 16 games, and two games ended in ties. During that same time period 18 of the 31 games played saw the final margin of victory to be 7 points or less. Texas Football magazine voted the 1986 game between the schools the Game of the Decade of the 80s in the Southwest Conference. Baylor led the game 17–0 in the 1st half and was positioned to score again when the Texas A&M defense was able to stop the Bears with a goal line stand. The Aggies came back in the final minutes with an 80 yard drive resulting in a touchdown and a 31–30 victory. The victory allowed the Aggies to claim the SWC Championship and advance to the Cotton Bowl for a second straight year. while Baylor finished in 2nd and ended the year with a victory over Colorado in the Bluebonnet Bowl. Another exciting game was the 1978 contest in which little-known Baylor freshman Walter Abercrombie rushed for 207 yards in a 24–6 Baylor win in College Station. The 207 yards were a then NCAA record for rushing yardage in an initial game. In the 1980 contest Baylor won by the blowout score of 46–7, going on that year to win the SWC Championship by a record 3 games and garnering a berth in the Cotton Bowl, where they were thrashed by Alabama, 30-2.

The thrilling 1986 A&M win began a period of domination in the series, in which Baylor did not beat A&M for 18 seasons (17 losses and a tie in 1990). The most lopsided match in the history of the rivalry occurred in 2003 when the Aggies routed the Bears by a score of 73-10. In that match, A&M had totaled over 700 yards in offense while holding Baylor to just 32 yards rushing. The loss was Baylor's 30th straight conference road loss. However, in 2004 an underdog Baylor Bear team defeated the No. 16 ranked Aggies 35–34 in overtime at Floyd Casey Stadium when the Bears converted a dramatic 2 point conversion on the final play of the game to earn their first win over the Aggies since 1985. The rivalry again became bitter in 2005 when the Aggies completed two fourth down conversions to win at home 16–13 in overtime.

The Baylor Bears defeated the Aggies for only the second time in 22 years in 2008. Baylor has not won at Kyle Field since 1984 (13 games) but has won 2 of the last 4 series games in Waco. The series future will be in doubt starting in 2012, when Texas A&M joins the Southeastern Conference. In 2011, A&M won the probable final series meeting 55-28 at Kyle Field.

Texas A&M currently leads the football series with Baylor 68–31–9.

Basketball
In men's basketball, Baylor and A&M have competed since the 1914–15 debut season of the Southwest Conference. With 211 games played, A&M leads the series with a 136 wins, 71 losses and 4 ties. Since the formation of the Big 12, the teams have followed parallel paths. Both spent the early years of the conference as lower-division teams (they combined for one NIT appearance and zero NCAA appearances from 1996 to 2004, and both suffered winless conference seasons during that span). However, in more recent years, they have grown into Big 12 contenders, with A&M reaching the NCAA's six straight years between 2006 and 2011 and Baylor reaching both in 2008 and 2010, with elite eight appearance in both years. In 2011, Baylor did not reach postseason play but swept the series with the NCAA Tourney-Bound Aggies.