COLLEGE STATION, TX – NOVEMBER 24: Carrington Byndom #23 of the Texas Longhorns breaks up a pass intended for Jeff Fuller #8 of the Texas A&M Aggies in the first half of a game at Kyle Field on November 24, 2011 in College Station, Texas. (Photo by Darren Carroll/Getty Images)

There’s one college football matchup on the schedule for Thanksgiving Day this year. LSU will visit Texas A&M as a night cap to a day of food and football, and then the matchup will be relegated to the your typical final Saturday kickoff once again.

For most of a century, A&M football was synonymous with Thanksgiving. Their near-annual Turkey Day bouts with the rival Texas Longhorns were the only game on come Thursday evening. The NFL games all wrapped up in the earlier part of the afternoon. The national exposure for the game fueled the heated rivalry even further, regularly adding postseason stakes beyond just in-state bragging rights.

When Texas A&M left the Big 12 for the SEC, the yearly game against the Longhorns went with them. But that didn’t stop either team from trying to conjure up similar fanfare with other opponents.

From 2012 through 2015, Texas alternated matchups with in-state foes TCU and Texas Tech. Both this year and in 2014, A&M was scheduled to host LSU. The Tigers refused to host a Thanksgiving Day game in Baton Rouge, which derailed any chance of Thursday tradition for that rivalry.

Texas moved off of Thanksgiving Day this year, and is unlikely to be back. A&M and LSU will cede the day to the Egg Bowl for at least the next two years. The SEC wanted a more traditional rival to get national exposure that day, so the Ole Miss-Mississippi State matchup (which has its own on-and-off history with Thanksgiving) makes perfect sense.

Effectively, Texas and Texas A&M have lost Thanksgiving, a day that once belonged to them. But why was it theirs to begin with?

Speaking with Texas Athletics, the ‘Horns were predestined to hold the day in a special place:

“Thanksgiving was a part of the Texas football legacy from the beginning of the program in 1893,” said Bill Little, University of Texas Athletics special assistant. “In its first game ever, a rag-tag band of college students rode a night train to Dallas on a warm Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. They were headed to play the Dallas Foot Ball Club, the self-proclaimed ‘champions of Texas.’ When the upstarts from the little school down in Austin won, 18-16, the Dallas team was humiliated.”

Little, Texas’s long-time sports information director, has a knack for these types of stories and historical tidbits. He’s co-authored seven books about Longhorns football, and also wrote the script for Matthew McConaughey’s The Story of Darrell Royal documentary. He stepped away from UT athletics briefly in 2014, but returned this year.

Little explains that Texas and Texas A&M first played in 1894 (in the season opener), but then not again until 1898. However, the ‘Horns continued playing on and off on Thanksgiving vs. the Dallas club and then LSU in 1899. In 1900, they’d meet A&M for the first time on November’s final Thursday. The reason? Not too different from what we see in today’s college athletics environment:

“It would appear the cause for the union on Turkey Day was for all the right reasons — for the money,” said Little.  “The two continued to play on Thanksgiving for several years, breaking the tradition for a few years by playing earlier in the year on a Monday in Houston.”

In a several-part series Little penned about Texas and Notre Dame’s history against one another, money was also at the forefront. The teams played on Thanksgiving in 1913, the Longhorns made about $3,500 on the game – just enough to finish in the black for the season. When UT tried to schedule the Irish again for 1914, they couldn’t make it happen. By 1916, they were back to facing A&M. That year, more than 15,000 fans attended. The schools were onto something.

They’d play on Thanksgiving most years from 1918 through 1988. The series resumed its annual Thanksgiving Day matchup in 2008, but that only lasted through the end of A&M’s tenure in the Big 12 (2011).

The tradition became a way of life for fans, with split-loyalty families coming together over the game each year. As Aggies coach Kevin Sumlin noted earlier this week, there are a lot of (older) fans that are just “comfortable” with the Thanksgiving arrangement, no matter who the opponent is.

Little does note that money wasn’t the only reason for the game and its continuation over time, though.

“It seemed a natural fit for the two state rivals, located only 90 miles apart. When the game was in Austin, the Texas A&M cadet corps traditionally paraded up Congress Avenue prior to the game as part of the pageantry of the holiday weekend.” 

But yeah, a bunch of the original impetus for playing on Thanksgiving was definitely cash:

“… In a time when finances for college athletic programs were pretty slim, the only time Texas made money for its entire season was when it played either Texas A&M or Notre Dame on Thanksgiving.”

So there you have it. For those (like me) wondering how Texas and Texas A&M got to playing on Thanksgiving, the answer is family, tradition and pageantry. And cash.

About John Cassillo

John Cassillo covers all things Syracuse sports (and beer) as managing editor of Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician. An SU alum, he hasn't missed an Orange football game since 2006, despite his better judgment. John lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, and his dog who's named after Jim Boeheim.