Texas volleyball makes first trip to Texas A&M as members of the SEC as hissing, sawing of Varsity’s horns resumes

Texas A&M fans were apoplectic when it was announced Texas was leaving the Big 12 for the SEC in 2021.

Ross Bjork, A&M’s athletic director at the time, practically demanded the Longhorns’ football team come to Kyle Field first. There was no way the Aggies would darken the doorways of Royal-Memorial Stadium first in 2024, 2025 or whenever the heck it was bound to happen.

The SEC office acquiesced to that demand. As a bonus, the league office dropped the eighth-ranked Texas volleyball team into the frying pan as a warmup act. First serve is 6:30 p.m. Friday at Reed Arena, but the hissing and sawing off Varsity’s horns from the maroon faithful begins long before.

At long last, “t.u.” returns to College Station.

Related: How does the new Lone Star Showdown work between the Texas Longhorns and Texas A&M Aggies?

WATCH AND SUBSCRIBE: Follow A to Z Sports’ Texas Longhorns channel on YouTube.

“Yeah, we’re excited to start the SEC experience,” Texas volleyball coach Jerritt Elliott said. “Obviously, they’re going to match us up with A&M to kick it off in a great environment, something that our fans are probably really wanting to be a part of.

“Should be a really good match with a lot of fans there.”

This is the first of many head-to-head matchups in the now-renamed Cotton Holdings Lone Star Showdown. Both schools agreed to a three-year deal that mimics the old State Farm Showdown from the 2010s.

Points are awarded for all matchups in every varsity sport between the two schools. The winner gets a trophy at the end of the athletic year in late spring.

Not only does volleyball kick off the Showdown on Friday, A&M women’s soccer is scheduled to be in Austin at 6 p.m. Sunday at the Mike A. Myers Stadium and Soccer Field.

It just means more, according to the SEC’s slogan. For the Aggies, it just means a hell of lot more to beat the Longhorns.

Related: Texas volleyball superstar Madisen Skinner signs massive NIL deal with grocery giant H-E-B

“I would expect that we would see probably 10,000-plus at this and it probably would be sold out if the football team wasn't away at Arkansas, but I'm excited about it,” Elliott said.

For those who don’t monitor other sports, SEC volleyball is electric. The Aggies are 9-1 under coach Jamie Morrison. He was an assistant at UT under Elliott in 2020-21 and had long, successful stints coaching various U.S. Olympic teams.

The Horns still have superstar Madisen Skinner, who has 35 consecutive matches with double-digit kills, and is the reigning national player of the year. Texas starts league play 5-3 overall with a win over No. 3 Wisconsin and No. 20 Baylor on one side and losses to No. 18 Minnesota and No. 2 Stanford on the other.

Skinner said “I know it’s going to be an intense match.” But to be fair, Skinner has played in a ton of wild venues and multiple high-stakes environments. Nobody wins back-to-back national championships without generating some heat on the road.

“I mean, it’s good to have to work through these kinds of kinks at the beginning of the season, because obviously we hate losing, but we'd rather lose now than in December,” Skinner said. “So just to be able to work through those things, face adversity, and then kind of figure out how to move through that is good for us.”

The SEC didn’t really do Elliott’s squad any favors when it comes to scheduling. Texas plays at A&M, LSU, Florida and Kentucky in the first five games before a long home stretch that starts Oct. 18.