Texas swiping Jim Schlossnagle pours gasoline on renewed rivalry with hated Texas A&M

There’s a scene within the film “Friday” the place Deebo, a muscular, 6-foot-5 neighborhood bully, is confronted by Purple, a personality who loaned him a bicycle.

Purple, who would possibly weigh half as a lot as Deebo, kindly asks for the bike again, informing Deebo that he was urged by his father to take action. Deebo briefly leads Purple to consider he’s going to return it, then unexpectedly delivers a Mike Tyson-caliber uppercut that knocks Purple out.

“That’s my bike, punk!” Deebo yells.

It’s on this spirit that Texas has poured gasoline onto its age-old rivalry with Texas A&M, simply days earlier than the Longhorns formally turn out to be league mates with the Aggies within the Southeastern Convention on July 1. By hiring Aggies baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle away from Faculty Station, lower than 24 hours after he led the Aggies to the brink of a title within the Faculty World Collection, the Longhorns have taken A&M’s lunch cash in a manner that resembles Deebo’s possession declare over that seaside cruiser.

It’s a joyous train of dominance for Texas over “little brother” and a painful reminder to the Aggies of why they selected to get away from “tu” within the first place 13 years in the past once they left the Massive 12 for the SEC.

Generally it sucks being the little brother..😂🤘🏾

— Nino (@qdiggs6) June 25, 2024

And for everybody, it’s an emphatic reminder that this heated rivalry is formally again and couldn’t have returned quick sufficient.

For the final dozen years, Texas and Texas A&M’s relationship has been outlined by the truth that they didn’t play within the sport everybody within the Lone Star State cares about: soccer. There have been years of will-they-or-won’t-they, a blame recreation and even legislative makes an attempt to get the Aggies and Longhorns again collectively. None of these labored, however the hate by no means went away. It simply discovered properties on message boards and social media by arguments about recruiting and unprovable claims of superiority from either side.

That every one modifications this 12 months. On Nov. 30, Texas and Texas A&M will meet in Kyle Discipline, the groups’ 119th assembly and first since 2011. Texas leads the all-time collection 76-37-5.

It’s lengthy overdue, and Texas needed to change conferences to make it occur. However Schlossnagle’s transfer on Tuesday will supercharge the depth of laborious emotions in a manner that nothing, besides perhaps Texas’ 2021 announcement of its SEC transfer, has since Justin Tucker’s game-winning kick sailed by the uprights on Nov. 24, 2011.

Some context behind Schlossnagle’s transfer is essential. It wasn’t merely leaving Aggieland for the Forty Acres. There’s a preexisting relationship that paved the way in which. Schlossnagle coached at TCU for 18 years and eight of these have been underneath Chris Del Conte, who’s now the Longhorns athletic director. Schlossnagle even alluded to that bond in a press release he launched by Texas A&M on Tuesday evening.

“Though I do know many will likely be upset with my determination, I selected to make a change to affix a longtime pal to proceed my profession as a university baseball coach,” Schlossnagle stated.

Assertion from Jim Schlossnagle:

“I wish to thank Normal Welsh, Trev Alberts and the twelfth Man for an unbelievable expertise throughout my time at Texas A&M. Though I do know many will likely be upset with my determination, I selected to make a change to affix a longtime pal to proceed my…

— Texas A&M Athletics (@12thMan) June 26, 2024

However that reality isn’t going to make anybody in Aggieland really feel higher. The varsity appeased Schlossnagle’s facility calls for by approving an $80 million plan to renovate Blue Bell Park. He talked of a grand imaginative and prescient for A&M’s future. With two Faculty World Collection appearances in his three years, it was straightforward to consider.

After coming so near the mountaintop, disappointment from falling quick on Monday evening has shortly turned to rage, anger and disgust directed 100 miles to the west towards Schlossnagle and everybody else in burnt orange. It’s one factor to go away. However after that season and for that faculty? Discuss a punch to the intestine.

Texas made an influence transfer by swiping a coach in a serious sport away from an in-state rival. It’s not the primary time the Longhorns have carried out this. There are comparable strikes in Texas’ historical past, from the Longhorns hiring males’s basketball coach Chris Beard away from Texas Tech in 2021 or hiring soccer coach Tom Herman away from Houston in 2016. The Longhorns additionally did it to the Purple Raiders in soccer, swiping David McWilliams away in 1987 after he spent only one 12 months in Lubbock.

However the hatred doesn’t circulate each methods between the Longhorns and people others the way in which it does with the Aggies. Taking a sitting coach away from Texas A&M is a distinct sort of flex.

It stings much more that it comes on the heels of A&M’s missed alternative to win its first nationwide title in baseball. Males’s basketball has by no means gained one and soccer remains to be in search of its first title since 1939. Girls’s basketball, ladies’s tennis, males’s and ladies’s monitor and subject, equestrian and males’s golf account for the Aggies’ nationwide titles this century.

In the meantime, Steve Sarkisian has revived Texas soccer, making the Faculty Soccer Playoff final season, giving the Longhorns a ton of momentum heading into 2024 whereas the Aggies paid Jimbo Fisher greater than $70 million to go away. Texas additionally gained its third Administrators’ Cup within the final 4 years, which matches to probably the most profitable total athletic program within the nation.

Though Texas has a richer profitable custom in baseball, with six nationwide championships, the Aggies took the higher hand of late, making two journeys to Omaha in Schlossnagle’s three seasons. A&M beat the Longhorns within the Bryan-Faculty Station Regional en path to the 2024 CWS. In 2022, the Longhorns’ final journey to Omaha, it was Schlossnagle’s Aggies who eradicated them.

And for a second, when Schlossnagle grew to become indignant late Monday evening when requested about his future in Aggieland amidst swirling rumors of him going to Texas, it sounded just like the Aggies would possibly simply stiff arm the Longhorns of their pursuit.

“I believe it’s fairly egocentric of you to ask me that query, to be sincere with you,” Schlossnagle stated. “However I left my household to be the coach at Texas A&M. I took the job at Texas A&M to by no means take one other job once more. And that hasn’t modified in my thoughts.

“That’s unfair to speak about one thing like that. … However I perceive you’ve acquired to ask the query. However I gave up a giant a part of my life to come back take this job and I poured each ounce of my soul on this job and I’ve given this job each ounce I might probably give it. Write that.”

Effectively, one thing modified, as a result of Schlossnagle’s gone and the Aggies are pissed. The Longhorns are giddy, simply as they have been three years in the past once they celebrated their pending transfer to the SEC.

“What a house run rent,” Texas president Jay Hartzell stated in a press release. “We’re the premier baseball program within the nation with legendary coaches, our six nationwide championships and document 38 Faculty World Collection appearances, so it’s definitely becoming that we employed a coach of his caliber to guide us. We’re trying ahead to nice days forward with Coach Schloss main our Longhorns.”

Texas A&M left the Massive 12 and the Longhorns after 2011 as a result of the Aggies needed to blaze their very own path. They needed to go away huge brother behind.

“It was clear to me that one factor A&M wanted was independence from our sister over in Austin,” former A&M president R. Bowen Loftin stated final 12 months whereas reflecting on the choice. “And we would have liked sources. The SEC afforded each of these very effectively. … I believe virtually each Aggie would agree it was the precise factor to do.”

Texas A&M had its independence for a little bit greater than a decade. However Texas is again within the neighborhood and the Longhorns simply repossessed the Aggies’ bike.

The Aggies should wait 158 days to attempt to get it again.

(Photograph: Maria Lysaker / USA At present)