There is no reasonable explanation for what occurred at Kyle Field on the night of October 9, 2021.

Texas A&M was supposed to lose to the Alabama Crimson Tide, and they were supposed to lose badly. The Texas A&M Aggies just beat Alabama 41-38. Top-ranked Alabama. Defending national champions Alabama. Nick Saban’s Alabama. That Alabama.

The game clock struck zero about thirty minutes ago. I am still running on nothing but adrenaline and Layne’s sauce. Hopefully I can finish this piece before crashing on my keyboard. Either way, I have absolutely no doubt that I’ll remember this night for the rest of my life. 

I’ve been watching this team disappoint since they first joined the SEC. The Aggies haven’t been bad. They’ve just been good enough to be relentlessly hyped and bad enough to constantly fail to live up to those lofty expectations. I’ve had an 8-5 childhood and it’s coming to an end.

For the win over Alabama that Aggie fans have been promised again and again to come in a year like this one, a year in which Texas A&M has hit the lowest of lows after beginning the season with national championship hopes is a level of poetic justice that Hollywood would die for. 

Sure, there were reasons to be hopeful about this game. The 12th Man of Kyle Field, Texas A&M quarterback Zach Calzada’s gradual yet steady improvement, and the fact that Bryce Young is not Mac Jones, Brian Robinson is not Najee Harris, and John Metchie is not Jaylen Waddle or DeVonta Smith all tempted the hopes of Aggie fans everywhere.

But it was just that. Temptation. No one of sound mind and body was expecting what just happened. 

That’s enough analysis for now. That sort of thing can be saved for later. Tonight is about emotion.

This win does not make sense. But if things were supposed to make sense, why would anyone watch college football in the first place?

I love this sport because of nights like tonight. Nights where nothing is as it should be and a motley crew like this Aggie team can go out and slay the sports’ biggest Goliath. Nights where I’m having a conversation over text about neighborhoods because Devon Achane’s 96-yard kickoff return came while we happened to mention a neighborhood in passing. Nights where my phone is being spammed with texts from a group chat that is bent on criticizing the Aggies’ offense in hopes of reverse-jinxing them into scoring once again. Nights like tonight make college football, and sports as a whole, worth watching. 

If you wonder why so many sports fans suffer through heartbreaking losses and soul-crushing defeats year after year, tonight is the answer. Those long-suffering souls are holding out hope for a mere sip of the emotional cocktail that I, along with practically the entire county, are experiencing right now. That mix of astonishment, relief, disbelief, and sheer joy is absolutely worth the years of disappointment it took to get here. And that’s why I, along with everyone else, stay in the game.

There will be work to be done and a world to go back to soon. But for now? I’m content to finish off the extra Layne’s sauce in my fridge, send a few all-caps text messages to my friends asking how in the world the Aggies managed to pull that off, and struggle to process what I just witnessed. 

Happy birthday Jimbo Fisher, and thank you for a night I’ll never forget.