Page 8 THE BATTALION TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, A974 Baylor awaits verdict A&M, Texas tangle to decide crown $£& fi/i/v tfc/es By PAUL McGRATH Staff Sports Writer Bevo. Orange and White. The Wishbone. “The Eyes of Texas”. “Texas Fight”. Darrell Royal. Hook ’em Homs. These few phrases would just about sum up the Southwest Con ference for the past six years as the University of Texas made a habit of waltzing through the rest of the league while on the way to the Cot ton Bowl. However, something funny hap pened to the Longhorns on the way to Cottonland. Texas Tech and Baylor showed the world there were a few chinks in the Horns’ sup posedly invincible armor. And now the boys from Austin are now cast in the role as spoilers rather than as favorites. Come 12:30 p.m. Friday, the bowl hopes of Texas A&M will be matched against the pride and tradi tion of Texas. An anxious Baylor Bear club will be watching for the ' i Take Texas to lunch. AA £ McDonald's 801-University Drive IVs a Perfect Gift PASSING TRADITIONS by S. Kinzer ©1974 Gallery Blue actual size (20X24 in.) Commissioned for Aggies by Aggies A painted history of Texas A&M University created by one of America’s leading magic realists. The original is so perfect you can’t believe it’s a painting. This print of the original oil has been carefully reproduced to both actual size and color on the finest hand embossed paper available. ewe- Mow for delivery by Christmas Send $15.00 to Name. “Passing Traditions" 1202 Chriswood Abilene, Texas 79601 Address. City, State, Zip. Royalties from the Sale of the Prints Donated to corps of Cadets Enrichment Fund. results of the nationally televised contest. An A&M victory automatically sends the Aggies to Bowl City in Dallas. A win by the Horns will put the Bears alone in the conference driver’s seat and off to their first bowl game in 50 years. So the day-after-Thanksgiving match between A&M and Texas will decide who really gets the turkey on New Year’s Day. The Aggies have not beaten Texas since 1967 which also happened to be the last year A&M won the con ference. The Farmers also have to overcome the jinx they seem to have developed over the years in playing in Austin’s Memorial Stadium. In 29 games, A&M stands 2-26-1 on the Horns’ home ground. Head coach Emory Bellard matches wits and offenses with his old mentor Royal. Bellard came to Aggieland in 1972 after serving a stint on the Texas coaching staff. With him he brought a new offense called the T-Bone and has finally built a winner on the Brazos. The Longhorns definitely possess the more potent offense thus shown by their 81 point output against TCU. The backfield combinations of Marty Akins, Mike Presley, Roosevelt Leaks, Earl Campbell, Joe Aboussie, Raymond Claybom, Don Burrisk, and David Bartek offer quality depth few teams can match. On the other side of the ledger is the A&M offense which has sput tered at times. Like the Horns, A&M had their biggest point pro duction of the year in their last game against Rice. Returning to the back- field may be Skip Walker after re covering from ankle problems and is reported near full speed. Quarterback David Walker, Bubba Bean and Bucky Sams round out the rest of the backfield posi tions. Mike Jay, Jerry Honore, David Shipman and Jim Hartman will be ready to fill in if called upon. Ronnie Hubby is still out with an injured groin. The A&M defense, the heart and strength of the team, is at full strength with all members suffering no ill effects. As the number two ranked defense in the nation, A&M must grind to a halt the Texas attack to stay in the game. Texas’ defense presents formida ble opposition but has had a ten dency to surrender a good deal of yardage through the air. Basically a running team, A&M may have to switch tactics to be successful offen sively. So, the game appears to be £ match up of the Aggie defense against the TeXas offense. If the Ag gies can move the ball, which they will probably have to do through the air, and can stop the ground game of Bevo’s boys, they will celebrate New Year’s in Dallas. Simple? Not quite. What if the Aggies can’t run or pass and the defense fails to do its job? Then the game will just go down as another typical A&M-Texas game, leaving the Aggies with no thing to cling to but dreams of next year once more. Beside the physical factors that i