JOINED AT THE HIP Based on their histories and spirited fans, A&M and Kansas State have brotherly ties By Homer Jacobs

Texas A&M and Kansas State had little in common before the formation of the Big 12, except for the fact that the two schools were formed as land grant institutions and Aggieland and Aggieville are their social epicenters.

OK, so R.C. Slocum once coached at K-State as a graduate assistant, but other than that, the Wildcats and Texas Aggies had built few lasting ties.

A&M's win over KSU in the Big 12 title game will never be forgotten.

Not anymore. The two schools, and more specifically, their football programs are now joined at the hip pad, forever found on the same page of college football annals under the tab "S"… as in Sirr Parker on the slant.

But before we recount the 1998 Big 12 championship, and before we look ahead to Saturday’s matchup in Manhattan, Kan., a glance at the two program’s histories reveals a similar walk to glory, at least over the last decade.

Prior to coach Bill Snyder’s arrival in Manhattan in 1989– the same year Slocum took over as head coach for the Aggies – the Mildcats were college football’s worst program, winning just 123 games from 1939-88.

During those same 50 years, the Aggies won over twice as many games with 267 victories. But Texas A&M still had some growing pains to endure before it hit its modern glory days of college football – circa 1985. In any case, both schools have come light years since their respective dark times.

In fact, no school has come further than K-State. Since Snyder’s arrival, the Wildcats have won 101 games and had posted 11 wins in each of the last four seasons, a feat only Florida State can match.

And the Aggies are enjoying unprecedented success, becoming the sixth-winningest program of the 1990s.

A&M has pulled much further ahead in terms of enrollment growth, doubling in the size compared to its northern counterpart.

And academically speaking, A&M and KSU are several honors classes apart.

The cities of Bryan/College Station might even dwarf the isolated hamlet of Manhattan.

But on the football field, the Aggies and Wildcats came into the Big 12 as distant cousins, but are now as close as brothers.

• The two schools have old-school coaches, who preach defense and special teams.

• Their home fields present the best atmospheres on gameday in the Big 12, with K-State’s intimidation factor only a few notches below that of mighty Kyle Field and the 12^th Man.

• Both schools recruit Texas kids, and both programs have won more games than they’ve lost in the last 15 years against their in-state rivals – Kansas and Texas.

• Both teams have played in two Big 12 title games, which brings us to the ultimate umbilical cord that will never be severed between the two…

The Miracle on the Mississippi.

The first two meetings between the Aggies and Wildcats in 1996 and 1997 were both memorable, as KSU barely escaped Kyle Field with a 23-20 win in 1996. And in 1997, the Wildcats stuffed the Aggies to hold them to minus yards rushing in a 36-17 purple whitewashing.

But in 1998, with K-State making a beeline toward the national title game – and probably the national crown, too – the Aggies bopped their little brother over the head with one swing for the ages.

Even one of KSU's coaches, defensive coordinator Phil Bennett, is an Aggie.

Every Aggie knows the particulars of A&M’s game of the century, but do we really know how much damage the Aggies inflicted on Kansas State’s millennium?

Pure and simple, when anyone mentions A&M to a Kansas State fan for the next 100 years, there will be a shudder down the spine.

Yes, A&M fans also can point to a title-crushing loss, as in the 1975 season. That’s when the 10-0 Aggies were one win away for playing for it all, until Arkansas spoiled the season and the decade.

But the Aggies weren’t a few minutes – and a yard or two – away from playing Georgia in the Cotton Bowl for the mythical national championship. Kansas State was that close, and unfortunately, will never be again.

A&M even stung the Wildcats in 2000, adding more black and blue to the purple and white.

But for all of the nasty memories the Aggies have created for the Wildcats, and for all of the bitter losses KSU has handed the Aggies in the first five years of the Big 12, a camaraderie exists between its fans like no other kinship between the North and South divisions.

Nebraska and Texas have built a nice rivalry, thanks in large part to the Longhorns’ 1996 "Roll Left" play to win the Big 12 title game and UT’s 1998 victory over the Huskers in Lincoln, snapping a 47-game home winning streak.

But it’s strictly a commonality based on a few close football games. Husker fans still despise anything orange, except the bowl game in Miami.

Yet, the Aggies of Texas and the Aggies of Kansas admire each other’s spirit and history. They feel at home at Rusty’s Last Chance in Aggieville and the Dixie Chicken in Aggieland.

They find the teasips of Kansas University and the teasips of the University of Texas often overbearing.

The mutual admiration societies of the two schools have been well-documented as former KSU athletic director Max Urick once singled out A&M in a letter to the editor as the model program by which all other fans and administrators should be measured.

While taking in the sights of Aggieville four years ago, I ran into countless KSU fans spewing compliments about their 1996 trip to Aggieland. Some couldn’t wait for 2000 so they could head to College Station again.

Now, three years after the 1998 title game and one year removed from last year’s 26-10 battering, the KSU fans will be waiting for the Aggies.

They will be gearing up their well-versed "First Down" chant that drones on and on when a defense can’t stop the high-flying ’Cats.

And should the Wildcats beat the Aggies, there will be a major celebration. Kansas State fans will have been granted just a little retribution for Mr. Parker’s touchdown scamper in St. Louis.

And what if the Aggies take another bite out of the Little Apple and notch a third-straight win in the series?

Well, K-State fans will depart Wagner Field depressed, like the two times before when the Aggies came out on top.

But then the fans will remember the standing ovation they gave the Aggie Band at halftime. They’ll remember the beers and brats they had with the A&M fans in the purple sea of tailgating that always unfolds before the game.

And they’ll look on the calendar and mark the Saturday in October in 2004, when the Aggies and Wildcats meet again in College Station.

For the two brothers of the Big 12 will have missed each other by then.