The Aggies barely had time to begin before the Longhorns made the game theirs. On the opening possession, Ralph Batiste stripped Herbert Fischer and returned the fumble 26 yards for a touchdown. That was the first punch. The Longhorns kept swinging until the scoreboard read 31-3.

The opening quarter was a parade of Aggies mistakes and Longhorns points. A sack and fumble deep in Aggies territory added two points to Austin’s lead, and Kirk Rose found Jeffrey Aguirre for a 19-yard touchdown to make it 16-0. Later, Wayne Stringer brought down Brett Ames in the end zone for a safety, stretching the margin to 18-0. By then, the Aggies had managed to turn their own backfield into a hazard zone.

Rose and Aguirre connected again in the second quarter, this time from three yards out, for a 25-0 advantage. Richard Brown added a 27-yard field goal before halftime, then made another from 24 yards in the third quarter. That pushed the lead to 31-0 and left the Aggies facing a mountain with no clear route up.

The visitors finally got on the board late in the third, when Chris Jones made a 56-yard field goal. It was a clean kick, but small consolation in a game where the Aggies finished with minus-6 rushing yards, no touchdowns and just one conversion on nine third downs. Their lone score never threatened to change the story.

Austin’s defense wrote most of it. The Longhorns recorded seven sacks, forced two fumbles and held the Aggies to 140 passing yards. On offense, the home team piled up 239 rushing yards on 41 carries, giving Rose room to steer a balanced attack. He threw for 209 yards and two touchdowns; Aguirre caught both scoring passes. Benjamin Maple ran for 92 yards, Blake Jones for 84, and Timothy Vance contributed 50 on the ground and 62 receiving yards.

There was one blemish: Jones lost a fumble in Aggies territory in the second quarter, a reminder that even a runaway can offer a warning. But Austin’s response was emphatic, and the final margin was no fluke. Edward Bolin’s Longhorns are 3-0, sit first in the division and have allowed just 16 points this season. The Aggies fall to 1-2 and third in the division. In this rivalry, the Longhorns didn’t merely win the afternoon. They made the visitors spend it trying to escape their own end of the field.