Battle of the Brazos (Baylor Bears vs. Texas A&M Aggies)

Baylor University (in Waco) and Texas A&M University (in College Station) have played each other in football since 1899, but the game didn’t always have a special name. The Brazos River runs through both Waco and College Station. The name “Battle of the Brazos” has been cited in print since at least 1977.
 
Other named football games include the Red River Rivalry (Texas Longhorns vs. Oklahoma Sooners), the Lone Star Showdown (Texas Longhorns vs. Texas A&M Aggies) and the Battle for the Iron Skillet (SMU Mustangs vs. TCU Horned Frogs).
     
     
Wikipedia: Battle of the Brazos
The Battle of the Brazos is the official collegiate sports rivalry between the Baylor Bears and Texas A&M Aggies. The rivalry is named for the Brazos River that flows by the two schools, which are only 90 miles apart. The Battle of the Brazos debuted in 1899, the year the first football game was played.
 
History
In the early days of the rivalry (1905 and earlier), Baylor and Texas A&M played each other multiple times, possibly due to a dearth of regional opponents. In 1996, the NCAA introduced overtime to college football, eliminating the chance of ties that had only infrequently occurred in the rivalry since 1939.
 
In the early days of the rivalry, Texas A&M was an all-male college, and Baylor was the closest college that had female students. Many Aggies dated Baylor coeds causing some resentment among the male students at Baylor, who did not have a corresponding pool of young women from Texas A&M to date.
     
Wikipedia: Brazos River
The Brazos River, called the Rio de los Brazos de Dios by early Spanish explorers (translated as “The River of the Arms of God”). The Brazos is the longest river in Texas and the 11th longest river in the United States at 2060 km (1280 miles) from its source at the head of Blackwater Draw, Curry County, New Mexico to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico with a 116,000 km² (44,800 sq mi) drainage basin.
 
Geography
The Brazos proper begins at the confluence of its Salt Fork and Double Mountain Fork (two tributaries of which rise west of Lubbock and pass through that city) flowing 840 miles through the middle of Texas. Its main tributaries are the Clear Fork Brazos River, which passes by Abilene and joins the main river near Graham; Bosque River; Little River; Yegua Creek; and Navasota River. Initially running east towards Dallas-Fort Worth, the Brazos turns south, passing through Waco, further south to near Calvert, Texas then past Bryan and College Station, then through Richmond, Texas in Fort Bend County, and into the Gulf of Mexico in the marshes just south of Freeport.
 
The Brazos is dammed in three places, all north of Waco, forming Possum Kingdom Lake, Lake Granbury, and Lake Whitney. Of these three, Granbury was the last to be completed, in 1969, and its proposed construction in the mid-1950s became the impetus for John Graves’ book, Goodbye to a River. There is also a small municipal dam (Lake Brazos Dam) near the downstream city limit of Waco, which raises the level of the river through the city to form a town lake. This impoundment of the Brazos through Waco is locally called Lake Brazos. There are nineteen major reservoirs along the Brazos.
         
14 October 1977, Corsicana (TX) Daily Sun, “Kicking around three-point subjects” by Mike Montfort, pg. 2B, col. 1:
Almost one year to the day (October 15), the Aggies will journey to Waco to renew the Battle of the Brazos at Baylor Stadium in what promises to be another typical knock-down, drag-out game—until somebody gets a break.
   
18 October 1985, Seguin (TX) Gazette-Enterprise, pg. 5, col. 3:
SWC roundup
Aggies, Bears set for “Battle of the Brazos”
By Denne H. Freeman
AP Sports Writer
Hang on for “The Battle of the Brazos.”
 
There won’t be any television in Waco Saturday night but a capacity crowd of 40,500 fans is expected as the Baylor Bears defend their Southwest Conference football leadership against Texas A&M University.

Google Groups: rec.sport.football.college
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Gary Wayne “Batman” Smith)
Date: 17 May 91 17:28:46 GMT
Local: Fri, May 17 1991 11:28 am
Subject: Re: True “Grit”? (was: TEXAS COW SCHEDULE)
 
I would sorely miss the Aggie-Baylor series.  The battle of the Brazos.
 
17 October 1991, USA Today, “Baylor, Texas A&M ready for shootout with lot on line” by Harry Blauvelt, pg. 10C
There is no love lost between the Southwest Conference rival Baylor Bears and Texas A&M Aggies, who renew their annual “Battle of the Brazos” Saturday at Waco, Texas.
   
Google Books
Beaches, Bureaucrats and Big Oil
By Garry Mauro
Austin, TX: Look Away Books
1997
Pg. 7:
The Battle of the Brazos, as the A&M-Baylor game is called, is played every year in one of my hometowns.
 
Victoria (TX) Advocate
Look back at 1926 Baylor-Texas A&M game, death
MATTHEW WATKINS
Originally published November 12, 2010 at 9:34 a.m., updated November 12, 2010 at 9:37 a.m.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) - The football rivalry between Baylor and Texas A&M was only recently nicknamed the Battle of the Brazos, but the 1926 game came closest to living up to that