Scenes from the first Texas-Texas A&M game in 13 years - ESPN

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Last time Brandon Grant set foot in Kyle Field, he was tasked with preserving a piece of sacred history.

Grant was part of the Texas equipment staff during the Longhorns' 2011 victory over Texas A&M, the last game before the rivalry was shelved when the Aggies departed for the SEC. Late in the fourth quarter, his boss called the staff over before Justin Tucker lined up to attempt a field goal on the game's final play with Texas trailing 25-24.

«Get down there under the goalpost,» Grant recalled him saying. «If that ball goes through and y'all don't come back with it, you're walking back to Austin.»

Tucker's 40-yard kick sailed through the uprights, giving the Longhorns the win and the «eternal scoreboard,» as coach Mack Brown called it. Meanwhile, Grant and his crew barreled up the steps, elbowing their way through a sea of Aggies before spotting a maroon-clad fan who had a football-shaped bulge under his jersey. The stadium police helped Grant's colleague, Trent Norwood, get the ball from the fan. Norwood tossed it to Grant, who immediately threw it down to another staffer on the field, who locked it away in a trunk for safekeeping on its way out of College Station.

On Saturday night, Grant was back at Kyle Field for the first time since that night. After a decade as an assistant football coach at high schools in the Austin area, Grant, now 34, was happy to watch as a civilian as the Aggies and the Longhorns resumed one of the greatest rivalries in college football, with his Longhorns pulling out a 17-7 win.

«I'm just glad the rivalry is back,» Grant said. «I was glad to be able to have a chance to be on the bookend experience of both. It's still passionate and bitter, but it's not angry and