Texas Week Finally Here as Alabama Visits Traditional Power

Since Texas gained its season opener towards Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday, 52-10, issues haven’t been calm in Austin. 

Head coach Steve Sarkisian, one in every of Nick Saban’s former offensive coordinators at Alabama, confirmed that two Crimson Tide transferred had principally swapped standing, with vast receiver Agiye Corridor reinstated after being suspended, and tight finish Jahleel Billingsley beginning to serve a six-game suspension for an NCAA infraction for one thing that stemmed from his time in Tuscaloosa. 

Beginning quarterback Quinn Ewers confessed on social media that his automobile had been towed whereas he threw for 225 yard and two touchdowns throughout his debut with the Longhorns. 

Throughout postgame interviews, tight finish Ja’Tavion Sanders informed reporters that Alabama “May blow us out,” if Texas did not care of its enterprise throughout practices within the lead-up to Saturday’s showdown in Darrell Ok Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

There by no means appears to be a scarcity of drama in Austin, which might be why Faculty GameDay will probably be entrance and heart Saturday mornings, with kickoff set for 11 a.m.

Even when Alabama is considerably favored, it is a marquee showdown, and preview of what is to come back when Texas joins within the Southeastern Convention on a few years. By way of title faculties, and profitable applications, few matchups can examine on this or every other season. 

That custom dates again to Thanksgiving Day 1916, the ultimate recreation of the soccer season and likewise when Robert Vinson turned the brand new College of Texas president. Some 15,000 followers had packed the stands at Clark Area to look at the Longhorns (an off-the-cuff time period that wouldn’t develop into the college’s official nickname for 4 extra years) play rival A&M Faculty of Texas, solely to see the groups end the primary two quarters tied, 7-7.

In the course of the break, a thin and frightened longhorn steer was introduced out on to the sphere and offered to the coed physique as the college’s first reside mascot. The thought had been the brainchild of former crew supervisor Stephen Pinckney, who had collected $1 from 124 different alumni to buy the animal.

In line with Jim Nicar, the Director of the UT Heritage Society, Pinckney had spent many of the yr in West Texas working for the U.S. Legal professional Common’s workplace helping with raids on cattle rustlers. Throughout one such raid close to Laredo in late September, he discovered a steer with orange fur that was nearly a precise match for the college colour. The longhorn was loaded onto a boxcar with out meals or water and arrived simply in time for the sport.

Texas went on to win, 21-7.

The steer was subsequently moved to a stockyard for a proper {photograph}, the place it proved to be extra ornery than the Aggies, and after the digital camera flash went off charged the photographer.

Within the subsequent difficulty of the Texas Exes Alcalde journal, editor Ben Dyer gave a full description of the day’s quite a few occasions, and relating to the steer merely wrote: “His title is Bevo. Lengthy might he reign!” (Be aware: The origin of the Bevo title remains to be very a lot doubtful).

Whereas college students debated about what to do with the wild animal, the Texan newspaper steered branding the longhorn with a big “T” on one facet and “22-7” on the opposite as a everlasting reminder of the Texas victory. As an alternative, it prompted some A&M followers to interrupt into the stockyard and model Bevo with “13-0,” the rating of the Aggies’ victory at Faculty Station in 1915. Every week later the longhorn was moved to a ranch 60 miles west of Austin, and largely forgotten about throughout World Warfare I.

After the 1919 season, with meals a bit scarce and Bevo deemed not well worth the cash his care price, the longhorn served on the January soccer banquet, with the Aggies invited and served the facet they’d branded.

In fact, one thing on that order can be nearly exceptional at present, though after the custom was restored in 1936 the tales of the next mascots had been simply as colourful. Bevo II modified an SMU cheerleader and Bevo III broke unfastened and ran free on campus for 2 days. Bevo IV attacked a parked automobile, whereas Bevo V went after the whole Baylor marching band.

These days, solely champion steers are thought-about for the job and Bevo XV turned the Texas Longhorns’ mascot in 2016. It is the identical one who went after Georgia mascot Uga in the course of the 2019 Sugar Bowl. 

Nonetheless, he’s normally thought-about 1,800 kilos of pure Texas delight, with horns measuring 72 inches, and simply as a lot a UT custom as Large Bertha, “The Eyes of Texas,” and the Hook ’Em Horns hand sign that arose partially from the mascot — and can get you in hassle in some European international locations, the place it means one thing fully completely different.

However as former scholar Walter Cronkite chimed in a sequence of commercials to advertise a fund-raising effort in 1998, “We’re Texas.”

College of Texas 

Location: Austin, Texas

Based: 1881 (opened 1883)

Enrollment: 51,991 (undergraduate 40,916, graduate 11,075)

Nickname: Longhorns

Colours: Burnt orange and white

Mascot: Bevo

Stadium: Darrell Ok Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (100,119 capability).

FanNation web site: Longhorns Nation  

Nationwide Championships (4): 1963, 1969, 1970, 2005.

Convention Championships (28): 1920, 1928, 1930, 1942, 1943, 1945, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1983, 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2005, 2009

Bowl appearances: 57 (31-24-2).

First season: 1893.

Components of this submit originated from the guide, Huddle Up: Texas Soccer. That is the primary story in a sequence that may look at the historical past of the Longhorns soccer program, and what it should deliver to the Southeaster Convention. 

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