If you log on to TexAgs.com, the popular Texas A&M fandom hub, and peruse the message boards, it won’t take long to find a mention of the Aggies’ most-hated rival: Texas.

On TexAgs’ premium board, where tens of thousands of paying subscribers congregate to discuss Aggies football, the longest message board thread with the most replies is entitled “Horn Meltdown Thread.” It’s 326 pages and as of Wednesday had more than 11,000 posts since the thread began in February. There’s been a Horn Meltdown Thread every year since 2014.

Type Orangebloods.com — a top destination for Longhorns fans since 2001 — into your web browser and mosey over to its subscription board. There’s a thread dedicated to discussing Texas A&M football news, where Longhorns rejoice whenever the Aggies stumble. The current one started in October 2022, is 871 pages and has more than 30,000 posts.

In the case of Texas and Texas A&M, their 13 years apart on the football field only fueled the hatred in their 118-year-old rivalry. Why? Because the rivalry lived online, through message boards and social media.

Now, with the Longhorns and Aggies set to meet Saturday night for the first time since 2011 — and with an SEC Championship Game berth at stake — the anticipation and intensity are at a fever pitch on Orangebloods, TexAgs and fans’ social media platforms of choice.

“The rivalry was just too big to go away,” said Robert Behrens, a Texas A&M graduate, managing editor of A&M fan website Good Bull Hunting and prolific poster of Aggies statistics. “People had to push their anger somewhere.”

Let’s start with one of the biggest reasons the rivalry simmered over the years in certain corners of the internet: proximity.

Texas and Texas A&M’s campuses are roughly 100 miles apart. They are the two largest universities in the state with the two biggest alumni bases. Their graduates share office space, fantasy football leagues and even dinner tables. The game might not have existed after Texas A&M left the Big 12 to join the SEC in 2012, but the trash talking never really stopped, online or off, in the decade-plus before Texas joined the Aggies in the SEC.

“You can’t expect there not to be Aggies and Longhorns in each other’s lives, every day, at Thanksgiving, in the families, in the workplace, friendships,” said Billy Liucci, the executive editor of TexAgs.com. “The game can go away, but there’s still Longhorns and Aggies who grew up liking each other or loving each other.”

But, Liucci said, “You’ve had two fan bases that, for 13 years, have been praying for the other one’s downfall.”

In 2019, Anwar Richardson, who covers Texas for Orangebloods, wrote a column advocating for the Aggies and Longhorns to resume their rivalry game. The reception from many of those who commented on the story was frosty.

“Like little kids, they picked up their ball and ran home. Screw them,” one poster said.

Said another: “No No No. Never Never Never. Drop it already, Texas should never play them again in any sport. They left, and talked s— on the way out.”

“There were 14 pages of commentary telling him, ‘You’re an idiot, stay in your lane, you don’t know what you’re talking about,’” said Geoff Ketchum, the publisher and owner of Orangebloods.

Recruiting has also kept things spicy between the Aggies and Longhorns. Although they haven’t competed on the field, the schools have gone head-to-head for dozens of recruits. The state of Texas is one of the most fertile recruiting grounds in the country, and Texas and Texas A&M usually pursue the state’s top prospects.

Message boards are prime real estate for rumors, especially in recruiting, where concrete information on the intentions of high school football stars can be elusive. Orangebloods and TexAgs are ground zero for keeping up with the comings and goings of Texas and Texas A&M recruiting, especially when the schools square off on the trail. And not just through message board rumors; both sites are fully staffed with reporters who cover the football teams and recruiting, dispersing real information to subscribers.

“That’s definitely kept the conversation going,” said Brandon Jones, president and CEO of TexAgs. “That’s where these small victories would take place: Who’s winning what recruits?”

The intensity of high-profile recruiting battles even once led to a public spat between Liucci and Ketchum. In January 2015, after longtime Texas A&M commit Kyler Murray visited Texas, the two got into a disagreement on what was then known as Twitter.

It started with Ketchum inviting Liucci onto his radio show (Liucci declined), then a debate on the chances that Murray would flip his commitment to Texas (he didn’t). Then it got personal, complete with name-calling, questions of professionalism and thinly veiled threats.

Liucci and Ketchum said they patched things up after that and get along fine. But it underscored how intense the rivalry could get online.

For those die-hards who aren’t paying a monthly fee to post or read content on Orangebloods ($9.99 a month) or TexAgs ($16.99), X has also been ripe for back-and-forth.

Kyle Umlang, a data analyst and podcast host, gained popularity in Texas social media circles for his #AggieFactThursday posts, which are random facts and statistics about Texas A&M’s futility or Texas’ superiority.

It’s been 30 years since Texas A&M had back-to-back 10-win seasons. #AggieFactThursday

— Kyle Umlang (@kyleumlang) November 21, 2024

10 Win Seasons | Since 2000

19 Oklahoma
11 Texas
1 Texas A&M#AggieFactThursday

— Kyle Umlang (@kyleumlang) October 10, 2024

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Umlang authored multiple books in this vein. The first was titled “101 Aggie Facts: Things Every Longhorn Should Know.” Three volumes were published. In August, Umlang announced his latest book, “The 2024 Aggie Fact Almanac,” which boasts more than 400 of Umlang’s Aggies facts.

Behrens, who began writing for Good Bull Hunting in 2013, has also gotten into the social media statistical sword fight. On Jan. 1, nearly two months after Texas A&M fired Jimbo Fisher but minutes after Washington defeated Texas in the College Football Playoff semifinals, Behrens posted a thinking emoji with a graphic comparing Fisher’s first three years at A&M to Texas coach Steve Sarkisian’s first three years at Texas.

🤔 pic.twitter.com/NM1kCfgJR9

— Robert Behrens (@rcb05) January 2, 2024

“I’ll throw out a completely factual statement that obviously implies an opinion or where I’m trying to lead you, but if someone tries to call me on it, I can just say, ‘Well, what did I say that was wrong?’” Behrens said. “I’m not going to say that I’m always objective, because I have a rooting interest and a bias. But I try to do it from a place that everybody can appreciate.”

Posts from Aggies or Longhorns about the other, however genuine or disingenuous, usually stir up a reaction. Because — even when they haven’t played — the rivalry still matters to both sides.

“Each side will tell you, ‘Oh, we’re in their head rent-free,’” said Amanda Atwell, a 2016 Texas graduate and former sports anchor who often posts about the Longhorns on X. “And they’re both renting out spaces in each other’s heads. I think we can just admit that at this point.”

Liucci, Jones said, “likes to mix it up on social media with Texas fans.” Ketchum doesn’t shy away from it either.

“I jokingly call myself Texas A&M’s No. 1 historian,” Ketchum said. “I’ve seen it all. It’s a different perspective of their history, but for the last 30 years, I know all the names, I know all the coaches, I’ve seen where all the bodies are buried. So it makes this weekend a lot of fun because I’ve missed it.

“I’ve missed Aggies. I’ve missed the rivalry and just being in each other’s lives, literally every day. Life’s better when these two have something cooking against each other.”

Liucci had mixed feelings about the rivalry returning before Texas moved into the SEC, but once the Longhorns did, the return of the game couldn’t get here fast enough, he said. He will relish the chance to claim superiority if the Aggies win on Saturday, but he also knows what’s waiting for him on social media if they lose.

“You talk it, you better be able to back it up,” he said. “On Twitter, the receipts are there for everyone to have on both sides.

“Everybody just wants bragging rights.”

(Photo of Texas A&M’s Ben Malena in 2011: Darren Carroll / Getty Images)

ARLINGTON, Texas — Something seemed a little off. DeMarvion Overshown was blitzing, and the running back picked him up. But after the two collided, the back let the Dallas Cowboys linebacker go.

And that’s when Overshown changed the game.

The second-year linebacker put up his right arm, got a hand on the short pass intended for the running back and hauled it in near the New York Giants’ 25-yard line. Overshown then finished the run, holding the ball in the air near the 5-yard line as he ran into the end zone.

The play helped put the Cowboys ahead 13-7 early in the second quarter, and they never looked back, defeating the Giants 27-20 on Thursday at AT&T Stadium.

“I was really just thinking, ‘Just blow up the play,’” Overshown said. “It was a blitz with my number on it. I just knew I needed to make an impact play or at least cause some type of confusion back there. When the running back let me loose, I was like, ‘There’s some BS going on.’ And then the quarterback threw the ball and I was like, ‘This is my play to make.’”

The quarterback was Drew Lock, playing in place of an injured Tommy DeVito. The running back was Devin Singletary. On the Fox game broadcast, Tom Brady pointed out how the Giants called a “low-risk play” with the screen, certainly not expecting a potential turnover.

“Lock isn’t even thinking about an interception,” Brady said. “You think I got an easy throw. But Overshown with his length ends up making a game-changing play.”

An AT&T Stadium crowd that has understandably booed the home team several times this season was about as loud as it’s been all season as Overshown finished the run.

WHAT A PLAY BY OVERSHOWN.

📺: #NYGvsDAL on FOX
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/o9hC8Zduzw

— NFL (@NFL) November 28, 2024

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“I was able to kick in some Nitrous, and we were dancing in the end zone after that,” Overshown said. “As soon as I got the ball, I knew I was scoring. So it was like, ‘What dance am I fitting to bring out today?’

“It couldn’t have come at a better time. Thanksgiving, the world’s watching.”

The start of Thursday’s game looked similar to previous Cowboys home games this season. The offense was unimpressive, and the defense was struggling to shut down a Giants offense that managed only one meaningless late touchdown in a 30-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.

But after the Overshown play, there was a momentum that has been missing at home. Dallas entered the game having trailed significantly entering the fourth quarter in its previous five home games, all decisive losses. It’s been a strange situation for a team that had been riding a 16-game home winning streak over the previous two seasons. The Cowboys led 27-10 at the end of the third quarter.

“This is our home,” Overshown said. “This is our castle. Teams should be scared to play us when they come here. Being on that losing streak, it wasn’t nice for us, either. It’s good to get this place rocking like it’s supposed to be. Now we got to keep it going.”

The Cowboys have won two consecutive games, improving their record to 5-7. But they’re far from realistically discussing the playoffs. Beating the Washington Commanders and Giants is certainly not a reason to erase how this disappointing season has started. Even usual glass-half-full team owner and general manager Jerry Jones didn’t want to discuss playoff possibilities after the game.

But Overshown’s play is a reason to be optimistic about the future. It also has a way of making one wonder what could have been last season as his rookie year ended in Dallas’ second preseason game. Could a play like the one he made Thursday have been a difference-maker during the season or maybe even the playoffs had he not suffered a torn ACL in his left knee?

“I told y’all from the beginning he was going to be a dude,” Cowboys All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons said. “Before the injury, I said, ‘That will be an All-Pro, Pro Bowl-type player. Now, he ain’t (No. 11) yet, that’s Agent 0. He’s not trying to be like me; he’s his own special specimen. He’s a wildcat on the field. Man, I love playing next to him.”

Overshown turned in flash plays early in the season, but he’s been more consistent as this year has unfolded. Playing next to a veteran like Eric Kendricks has helped. The two connected on another key defensive play Thursday.

On the opening series of the third quarter, Kendricks sacked Lock, stripping the ball in the process. Overshown recovered. Dallas scored six plays later, making the score 20-10.

DeMarvion Overshown’s interception return for a TD was a game-changer Thursday. (Andrew Dieb / Imagn Images)

“D-Mo is a great player,” Kendricks said. “He’s one of the best I’ve ever been around. His attitude is just pure. He loves the game. I love to see it. And it motivates me, being in my 10th year. It motivates me to see a Year 2 guy like him, especially what he brings to the field.

“He’s getting better every game. He knows he has things to work on. He’s taking it seriously. The sky is the limit. I’m excited to see what he has in store. Expect more big games from him this year.”

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy had similar thoughts after the game, saying Overshown’s interception was one of Dallas’ highlight plays of the season. He, too, sees even better days ahead for last year’s third-round pick.

“I’m very thankful,” Overshown said. “Just before the game, I was telling myself, ‘Around this time last year, I was just waiting to show people my testimony. When I get back on the field, I’m going to show what God has truly put into me: to go out there and inspire and play like I do.’ Just being out there on the field healthy is all I can ask for.”

(Photo: Andrew Dieb / Imagn Images)

Friday, November 29, 2024, marks the 125-year anniversary of the formation of FC Barcelona.

To mark the occasion, The Athletic is running a series of pieces, celebrating the people and the moments who have helped make the club what it is today.

We have told you about the story of Joan Gamper, the man who founded the club, and run through some of the most significant numbers in Barca’s history. Now, we look at the scarcely believable story of when their star striker, Quini, was kidnapped in 1981…

“Quini’s wife called me at four o’clock in the morning. She told me he hadn’t come home that night and that she hadn’t heard anything from him.”

Former Barcelona president Joan Gaspart is talking to The Athletic about one of the most unusual incidents in the club’s history.

It was Sunday, March 1, 1981, and Gaspart was vice-president. Barca had beaten Hercules 6-0 at the Camp Nou and La Liga’s top scorer Quini had provided two goals. Barca looked on course for the Spanish title — something that had not happened since 1973-74, in Johan Cruyff’s playing days and when Quini was scoring goals for Sporting Gijon instead.

There was a sense of euphoria in the city and among the players, who decided to go for dinner at a restaurant near the ground.

It was the restaurant Can Fuste, a 15-minute walk from Camp Nou. Everyone was waiting for the then 31-year-old star striker Quini, full name Enrique Castro Gonzalez — but he never arrived.

“There were seven or eight of us,” Carles Rexach — one of the players in the squad tells The Athletic. “(Barca centre-back and Quini’s close friend Jose Ramon) Alexanko met us and said he didn’t know where he was or where he had gone.”

The last anyone had heard from Quini was a TV interview in which he spoke about their upcoming game against Atletico Madrid. Atletico were in first place, two points ahead of Barca and the game was crucial.

Mari Nieves, Quini’s wife, had flown back from Gijon that afternoon with her two children, as she did on many weekends. After the match, her husband stopped by the house to pick up his things before getting in his Ford Granada to head to Barcelona airport to pick her up.

“His wife (when he did not appear at the airport) had called several hospitals, police stations or any place where they might know something,” Gaspart says. “He didn’t show up. Nobody knew anything. We went to his house at five or six o’clock in the morning thinking, ‘Where could he be?’”

Gaspart, then-Barca president Josep Lluis Nunez and Alexanko spent the night at Nieves’ house and immediately called the police.

The next day, the report of Quini’s disappearance became official. The three men stayed with Nieves until she received a call that began to give her answers.

The case caused a stir across the country. It was reported in all the major media outlets and rumours began to spread about whether the Basque separatist group ETA had been involved after terrorising Spain with a number of attacks.

Nieves received the first of 21 calls from her husband’s kidnappers. It was not ETA but three people with no criminal record and no jobs who had tried to solve their financial problems by kidnapping one of the country’s biggest football stars and demanding a large ransom.

“The news spread like wildfire all over Barcelona,” Josep Maria Minguella, a former agent and a figure who has been closely linked to the club over the years, tells The Athletic.

“There was a lot of consternation. With ETA active, there were a lot of kidnappings at the time, but it had never happened to a player. It was reminiscent of what had happened to (Real Madrid legend Alfredo) Di Stefano a few years earlier (when he was kidnapped by Venezuelan guerrillas in 1963).”

As Rexach puts it 43 years later, “At first we thought it was a joke because it was unimaginable.”

On his way home from the airport, Quini had stopped to fill up his car when the three men suddenly assaulted him and forced him into the vehicle at gunpoint. They later abandoned the car and put Quini in a hood and wooden crate in a van and drove to Zaragoza, around a four-hour drive to the west of Barcelona.

There they transferred him to a hideout, where he spent 23 days locked up.

Quini had been top scorer five times in La Liga and had scored 73 goals across four seasons with Barcelona.

“He was one of the best players in Spain and was constantly in the media spotlight,” Rexach says. “They knew kidnapping him was going to have a big impact.”

“He was such a charismatic man and he was good to people,” Juan Carlos Perez Rojo, a player who was in the ‘B’ team but trained with Barca’s senior side, tells The Athletic. “They knew everyone was going to step up and give him the money he needed.” Rojo and Quini became friends some time after the kidnapping and he is into his 46th year at Barca, where he works as a scout.

“As a person he was very simple, a good person, kind,” says Minguella, who helped sign Quini from Sporting Gijon. “He didn’t deserve all the things that happened to him and his family. It’s one of those moments when you realise that life can be unfair.”

Quini with Nieves on the day of his release (Xavier Bonilla/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It later emerged the kidnappers’ main target had been the then-Barcelona coach Helenio Herrera. When they found out he had a cold, they changed their plans as they feared he might die during the kidnapping.

In the days that followed, the police worked in secrecy.

“There was a lot of upheaval,” says Minguella. “The police controlled the situation and didn’t want too many people to intervene.”

“The police didn’t want people to get in the way, even if they wanted to help,” adds Rexach. “So they just let Alexanko be the one to help.”

Barcelona asked La Liga to postpone the match against Atletico that weekend. The Spanish top flight denied that request, Barca played and lost 1-0 at the Vicente Calderon, Atletico’s former home. The German midfielder Bernd Schuster, who threatened not to play, blamed Nunez and Herrera for the match going ahead.

“There were people who didn’t want to play until they found him and there was a bit of a struggle because the coach thought we had to play even if he wasn’t there,” says Rexach. “It was complicated.”

Barca played two more games with Quini still missing, losing 2-1 to Salamanca and drawing 0-0 with Real Zaragoza. They would finish four points behind champions Real Sociedad in fifth place.

“That year we didn’t win La Liga because we spent those three weeks just thinking about Quini,” Rexach says.

Meanwhile, the police continued to do their job. As calls from the kidnappers were made from phone boxes, they asked Telefonica, Spain’s leading telecoms company which owned them, to cooperate.

“The kidnappers went completely unnoticed,” Juan Martinez Ruiz, one of the 20 officers in charge of the case, later told Spanish magazine Libero. “That was the main reason it took so long to locate them. They had never broken a dish, they had no previous convictions, they were not related to criminals… They were absolutely normal.”

The police issued a statement appealing for the public to help and had to deal with an avalanche of false leads. Telefonica had trouble identifying the origin of the calls.

In one of their calls, the kidnappers told Nieves they were nervous because of how much Quini ate, given they no longer had enough money to buy sandwiches. They were demanding 100 million pesetas for his ransom (worth around €600,000 today), a figure that had risen from the original 70 million pesetas.

In one of the attempts to pay the kidnappers, the police asked Alexanko to go to La Jonquera, a Catalan town close to the French border, with a briefcase full of banknotes. The kidnappers asked him to cross the border, but the police refused because the French authorities would have arrested him on the spot.

On March 20, the three men asked the money to be paid into a Credit Suisse bank account.

“Barca were looking for solutions because the kidnappers were very absent-minded,” Minguella says. “Those who kidnapped him did not have very clear ideas about what ransom they wanted to ask for and were changing their strategy.

“Nunez’s secretary called me to find out if I had any way of getting money in Switzerland, where the kidnappers asked for the money to be deposited. I was doing business in Luxembourg and Switzerland and I had money there. I said yes and agreed to help with the payment.”

The bank account was in the name of one of the kidnappers, Victor Miguel Diaz Esteban. The Swiss police worked closely with their Spanish counterparts to track him down. Diaz Esteban went to Switzerland to withdraw one million pesetas in U.S. dollars on March 24; within 18 hours, the police had arrested him after finding the hotel where he was staying and following his steps when he left for the airport to catch a plane to Paris. He was interrogated and confessed to holding Quini in a basement in Zaragoza.

In less than a day, the police released him and arrested a second kidnapper.

Quini later told friends this was when he was most afraid because he heard a lot of noise and thought the kidnappers would kill him. But on the night of March 25, radios across Spain announced he had been freed.

When he arrived in Barcelona, a huge crowd was waiting for him at the police station — Quini had to go out to greet them.

The striker prepares to give a press conference after his release (FC Barcelona)

“When he came out he was in a very bad state, you could see it,” Rexach says. “All I know is that I gave him a hug. He was hidden in a place with no light for 23 days. It’s something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”

“He wanted to play and get back to normal as soon as possible,” Rojo says. “They gave him psychological support, I heard about it from team-mates some time later.”

Quini returned for the last four games of the La Liga season, playing again barely a week after his release, and was received with full honours at every ground he played at. He played 90 minutes in each of his first three league games after his return — scoring twice in a 5-2 win against Almeria — and still finished as La Liga’s top scorer with 20 goals. He also scored in both legs of the Copa del Rey semi-final and twice in the final against his boyhood side Sporting Gijon in the final as Barca lifted Spain’s national cup.

“On every pitch, when they said Quini’s name, there was five minutes of applause,” Rojo says. “He had a spectacular reception.”

The three kidnappers were sentenced to 10 years in prison and given a five million peseta fine.

“They were simple people, without great possibilities,” Quini told a press conference after his release. “They fed me with sandwiches because they couldn’t afford any more.”

“There were team-mates who made jokes after that,” Rojo says. “Sometimes, when we were in hotels after dinner when you go to the room, there were team-mates who would go into his wardrobe to scare him when he arrived.”

Quini spent three more seasons at Barcelona, finishing with 73 goals in 141 appearances for the Catalans. He then returned to Sporting Gijon in 1984, where he spent the last three years of his playing career. He worked as a coach, team delegate and director of institutional relations for them.

The kidnapping had a very real impact on Quini, who died of a heart attack aged 68 in 2018. He was given an emotional tribute by the Camp Nou, with a huge tifo unfurled that read ‘Quini, sempre recordat’ — Quini, always remembered.

The Camp Nou tribute to Quini after his death (Xavier Bonilla/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“This affected him a lot throughout his life,” Rexach says. “He spent many days locked underground in a very small cell. He didn’t want to talk about it because every time he did, he relived the trauma.

“He did tell me that when he was fed by the kidnappers he sometimes kept (the food) to himself. He thought that if they hunted them down and killed them, it would be impossible for anyone to find him there and he would starve to death.

“He had those 23 days in his head until the day he died. People think he forgot it quickly, but he didn’t. When someone would ask him a question (about it), you’d see him change the subject very quickly.

“It’s the most unbelievable thing that has happened to Barca in its history.”

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)