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A year earlier, Texas A&M had taken a 13-0 lead over Texas as Kyle Field rocked and swayed like rarely before. Could this be the year, Aggie fans thought, that the tide turned in A&M’s favor? The answer was a definitive and authoritative "no."
The Longhorns stormed back from the early deficit in 1983 to score 45 unanswered points against the outmanned Aggies en route to a convincing 45-13 win. It was the 12th Texas victory in the last 16 meetings against the Aggies and yet another painful example of the Horns’ supremacy in the series. So, the following year when the Aggies sprinted to a 20-0 halftime lead over the Longhorns in Austin, few A&M fans were breathing easily. And when Texas marched down field early in the third quarter, there was a fear among many Aggies that "here we go again." "I’m sure folks in the stands felt that way," said Scott Polk, a senior linebacker in 1984. "Our luck against Texas hadn’t been real good. Some times the ball bounces your way, some times it doesn’t. Against Texas, it hadn’t usually bounced our way." This time, however, it did. With the Longhorns at the A&M 10, Texas kicker Jeff Ward lined up for a 27-yard field goal attempt that would have cut into the A&M lead and given the Longhorns a boost of momentum. Instead, A&M’s Domingo Bryant swooped in from the right side to block the kick. Polk, on the left side, picked up the loose ball and lumbered 76 yards to the Texas 7. The Aggies converted the block into an 18-yard Eric Franklin field goal and a 23-0 lead. The fat lady began singing, while Texas fans began exiting. And Polk instantly became a folk hero following the 37-12 win. It was the type of play that had broken the Aggies’ hearts so many times in the past. And it is the play many Aggies still refer to when discussing turning points in the Texas series. Beginning with the ’84 game, A&M rolled off six straight wins over Texas and won 10 of 11 from the Horns. Even today, when Polk meets fellow Aggies, the first topic of conversation is usually about the play. Ironically, Polk says, many Aggies now remember it for being even better than it was. "Never in a million years would I have thought people would still be talking about that play," said Polk, who now lives in Dallas. "One of the funny things is, I see a lot of old Ags that will recall the particular play as a touchdown.
"They’ll say, ‘I remember the game in Austin on Thanksgiving, it was on ESPN, where you caught that block, or the fumble, or the interception and ran it back for a touchdown.’ Over half the guys that bring it up remember it as a touchdown. I never really bother to correct them." Polk jokes that it probably should have been a touchdown, but that he was actually just trying to run out the clock. "I can honestly say I recall some thoughts of what was in my head, the first of which was, ‘What’s taking everybody so long to catch up to me?’ I remember the term ‘lumbering’ was used to describe it," Polk said. "I don’t blame them. I don’t think I had run that far since two-a-days. Defensive guys don’t run 80 yards for sprints, we run about 40. I was good for the first 40 yards, but after that, I started to lose a little ground." Polk will probably forever be remembered by many Aggies for that one play, but he also had an extremely productive career at A&M, too. Polk’s father, John, graduated from A&M in 1957, so Scott grew up with one primary vision in mind: Playing football at Texas A&M. As a senior at Dallas W.T. White High School, Polk took some other recruiting trips, but he always knew where he would eventually sign. "I did kind of what a lot of high school guys do, taking their little recruiting trips to see what’s out there and to have some fun, but there was never a doubt where I was going," Polk said. "I remember, in fact, taking a recruiting trip out to Texas Tech, and they showed us some statue of a guy on a horse and they said his rear was pointed toward College Station. "That actually made me kind of mad. They knew I wasn’t headed to Lubbock." Polk followed his heart and signed with Tom Wilson’s Aggies in 1980. He played as a true freshman and even started a few games during the ’80 season. He endured a knee injury that spring and was still not 100 percent the following fall. But he played briefly as a sophomore – enough to earn a letter in ’81. "I guess I played just enough to letter, then I tore my hamstring real bad," said Polk, who played both defensive end and outside linebacker during his collegiate career. "So, we decided to go ahead and get the medical hardship redshirt season. I then played the next three years, which technically made me a five-year letterman." Following his final season at A&M, Polk signed a free agent contract with the Kansas City Chiefs. Polks says that if he had only had a little more size and a lot more speed he would have been a perfect fit in the NFL. Instead, he was with the Chiefs for only a couple of months before coming back to Dallas to get involved in the family business. His grandfather started in the diamond business in the late 1940s, and today, Polk runs the wholesale diamond distributorship from the World Trade Center in Dallas. Polk and his wife, Stephanie, have two daughters, 9-year-old Shelbi and 6-year-old Becca. Stephanie Polk went to Baylor, but through the years she has become well-versed in the play that made her husband famous among Aggie faithful. "Oh yeah," Polk said, "she’s even more amazed than I am that people are still talking about it. I think my oldest daughter has heard about it plenty of times, too. I tell them that they better know about that play, because it was the only one that I made at Texas A&M." Polk downplays his impact on the A&M football program, but he looks back on his time in College Station with tremendous satisfaction. He was able to fulfill a dream by playing for the Aggies, and he also made some of the most meaningful relationships in his life. "I feel very blessed to have played college football and to have been at A&M," he said. "I had to have a knee operation, and my wife has asked me, knowing all you know now with your knee, if I would do it again. I said I would absolutely do it again. I feel blessed that God provided some unbelievable relationships for me and some real growth in my life while I was at A&M. "I was blessed to have been involved in a great church down there, Grace Bible Church. The friends that I made and just the experiences I had while I was at A&M have meant so much to my development physically, mentally and spiritually. I wouldn’t change a thing if I had it to do all over again." Neither would many A&M fans, who still vividly recall that warm December night in Austin when Polk helped to finally break the Longhorns’ backs. And at this time of year, with the A&M-Texas game once again looming, Polk says he feels a special sense of pride. "Some reporter once wrote that that was the play that changed A&M football," Polk said. "I don’t know about that. But it was certainly the start of a lot of years of success against Texas. "We went to one bowl in five years while I was there, and that was the (1981) Independence Bowl. Bu it did seem like we were building up there under Jackie Sherrill. The year after I left, we went to three straight Cotton Bowls. So, depending on one’s view of life, you could say I was either part of the dead wood or part of building a program. Selfishly, I like to think I was part of the latter." Objectively, so do thousands of other Aggies who love to recall Polk’s rumble as a changing of the pecking order in the A&M-Texas series.
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