UT-A&M rivalry came to an end once before

quote:

---

Varsity fans also grumbled that Moran taught "slugging," the era's description of dirty football, and chanted, "To hell, to hell, with Charley Moran and all his dirty crew. If you don't like the words to this song, to hell, to hell with you."

Holm countered, "He taught rough football but I never knew it to be dirty. He taught winning football."

When the teams met Nov. 13, 1911, at West End Park, Texas lost lineman Marlon Harold to a broken leg on the first play. But in the second period, A&M halfback A.R. Bateman fumbled at the College 15-yard line and Texas halfback Arnold Kirkpatrick returned it for a touchdown.

Earth-shaking victory

Kirkpatrick's five-point TD, plus the extra point, accounted for the scoring in a 6-0 Texas win that was sufficiently shocking, the Chronicle wrote, to "shake every office building in Houston."

Afterward, some of the 10,000 fans in attendance were said to have ripped their way through a picket fence to commence fisticuffs. Kern Tips described it in his book Football Texas Style as "a dilly of a donnybrook," and Texas football historian Lou Maysel wrote, "It was unsafe in downtown Houston for anyone wearing Texas colors as bands of A&M students roamed the streets."

The next day, W.T. Mather, chairman of the UT athletic council, wrote his A&M counterpart, "I beg to inform you that the athletic council of the University of Texas has decided not to enter any athletic relations with the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for the year 1912."

---

quote:

---

Texas team manager Stephen F. Pinckney told the Austin American-Statesman that A&M "has earned a reputation for rotten athletics. … They admit trying to injure some of our men."

"I never played in so dirty a game in my life," said Texas lineman Marshall Ramsdell. "… (A&M players) use brute force and break legs and arms and heads by slugging if necessary."

The Bryan Eagle responded with the headline "Varsity Curses Sent Home to Roost/Slanderous Charges of Texas University Athletic Authorities Refuted by Positive and Incontestable Evidence."

"The football team, the student body, the athletic council, the faculty and the alumni association have found nothing wrong in Mr. Moran's systems or tactics," wrote J.B. Bagley, A&M athletic council president.

And so the teams parted. Texas lost just two games over the next three years and was unbeaten in 1914. A&M in 1912, with what was considered Moran's best team, outscored opponents 366-25, but the lost revenue from the Texas game, Holm wrote, "all but sent our athletic department into bankruptcy."

Quietly, former A&M players Hal Moseley and Joe Utay began talks with Texas, which in 1913 hired Theo Bellmont from his job as secretary of the Houston YMCA to be athletic director, to revive the series.

On Nov. 30, 1914, the schools agreed to play again in 1915. A few days later, Moran resigned, citing "immediate pressure of other business" in his home state of Kentucky.

Parting wish

He received a full dress parade from the Corps and was made an honorary member of the Class of 1913. As A&M prepared to play Texas in 1915, he wrote each player a letter that concluded, "If you still love me and think anything of me, then beat Texas."

They complied, winning 13-0 in the first A&M-Texas game at College Station, and the A&M athletic department recorded a net profit of $3,429.07 - roughly the amount that Texas, with its $152 million athletic budget spends every 15 minutes these days.

---