Texas Week Finally Here as Alabama Visits Traditional Power - Sports Illustrated

Since Texas won its season opener against Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday, 52-10, things have not been calm in Austin.

Head coach Steve Sarkisian, one of Nick Saban's former offensive coordinators at Alabama, confirmed that two Crimson Tide transferred had basically swapped status, with wide receiver Agiye Hall reinstated after being suspended, and tight end Jahleel Billingsley starting to serve a six-game suspension for an NCAA infraction for something that stemmed from his time in Tuscaloosa.

Starting quarterback Quinn Ewers confessed on social media that his car had been towed while he threw for 225 yard and two touchdowns during his debut with the Longhorns.

During postgame interviews, tight end Ja'Tavion Sanders told reporters that Alabama "Could blow us out," if Texas didn't care of its business during practices in the lead-up to Saturday's showdown in Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

There never seems to be a shortage of drama in Austin, which is probably why College GameDay will be front and center Saturday mornings, with kickoff set for 11 a.m.

Even if Alabama is significantly favored, it's a marquee showdown, and preview of what's to come when Texas joins in the Southeastern Conference on a couple of years. In terms of name schools, and successful programs, few matchups can compare in this or any other season.

That tradition dates back to Thanksgiving Day 1916, the final game of the football season and also when Robert Vinson became the new University of Texas president. Some 15,000 fans had packed the stands at Clark Field to watch the Longhorns (an informal term that wouldn’t become the school’s official nickname for four more years) play rival A&M College of Texas, only to see the teams finish the first two quarters tied, 7-7.

During the break, a skinny and frightened longhorn steer was brought out on to the field and presented to the student body as the school’s first live mascot. The idea had been the brainchild of former team manager Stephen Pinckney, who had collected $1 from 124 other alumni to purchase the animal.

According to Jim Nicar, the Director of the UT Heritage Society, Pinckney had spent most of the year in West Texas working for the U.S. Attorney General’s office assisting with raids on cattle rustlers. During one such raid near Laredo in late September, he found a steer with orange fur that was almost an exact match for the school color. The longhorn was loaded onto a boxcar without food or water and arrived just in time for the game.

Texas went on to win, 21-7.

The steer was subsequently moved to a stockyard for a formal photograph, where it proved to be more ornery than the Aggies, and after the camera flash went off charged the photographer.

In the subsequent issue of the Texas Exes Alcalde magazine, editor Ben Dyer gave a full description of the day’s numerous events, and regarding the steer simply wrote: “His name is Bevo. Long may he reign!” (Note: The origin of the Bevo name is still very much in doubt).

While students debated about what to do with the wild animal, the Texan newspaper suggested branding the longhorn with a large “T” on one side and “22-7” on the other as a permanent reminder of the Texas victory. Instead, it prompted some A&M fans to break into the stockyard and brand Bevo with “13-0,” the score of the Aggies’ victory at College Station in 1915. A week later the longhorn was moved to a ranch 60 miles west of Austin, and mostly forgotten about during World War I.

After the 1919 season, with food a bit scarce and Bevo deemed not worth the money his care cost, the longhorn served at the January football banquet, with the Aggies invited and served the side they had branded.

Of course, something on that order would be almost unheard of today, although after the tradition was restored in 1936 the stories of the following mascots were just as colorful. Bevo II changed an SMU cheerleader and Bevo III broke loose and ran free on campus for two days. Bevo IV attacked a parked car, while Bevo V went after the entire Baylor marching band.

Nowadays, only champion steers are considered for the job and Bevo XV became the Texas Longhorns' mascot in 2016. It's the same one who went after Georgia mascot Uga during the 2019 Sugar Bowl.

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Nevertheless, he’s usually considered 1,800 pounds of pure Texas pride, with horns measuring 72 inches, and just as much a UT tradition as Big Bertha, “The Eyes of Texas,” and the Hook ’Em Horns hand signal that arose in part from the mascot — and will get you in trouble in some European countries, where it means something completely different.

But as former student Walter Cronkite chimed in a series of commercials to promote a fund-raising effort in 1998, “We’re Texas.”

University of Texas

Location: Austin, Texas

Founded: 1881 (opened 1883)

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

Nickname: Longhorns

Colors: Burnt orange and white

Mascot: Bevo

Stadium: Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (100,119 capacity).

FanNation site: Longhorns Country

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

Conference 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.

Parts of this post originated from the book, Huddle Up: Texas Football. This is the first story in a series that will examine the history of the Longhorns football program, and what it will bring to the Southeaster Conference.