Aaron Wallace on A&M's 1989 victory over Houston, Ware's helmet

Key quotes from Aaron Wallace interview

“I’m so proud (of Aaron Jr. getting drafted). I talked to him last night and he is up in Tennessee.  He is going to be there until the end of the month and he is adjusting and learning the new playbook and getting adjusted to the NFL.  Hopefully it works out for him, I hope it does.”

“Tennessee definitely has a lot of young guys up there.  They have the last two Heisman Trophy winners on offense.  The defense is coming along well.  I know a couple of the coaches up there and they are excited to have Aaron Jr. and are excited to have the program going in the direction that they wanted.  So, hopefully they will be able to compete.”

“Just about every time I wear my A&M stuff I get asked about the Andre Ware play.  A lot of people don’t recognize me without the helmet on.  I live up in Frisco and we have a lot of Aggies up there and when they find out who I am, that is always the first question that comes up. The helmet that I raised up ended up being the most famous play for me.  It has been 25 years now and people still ask me about that same play.”

“At the time (raising the helmet) was just an impulse.  There was a lot that went into that game.  We had a great game plan.  I had a turf toe injury that I had to have numbed up a little bit and I wanted to do something during that game to make up for all of the pain that I was going through.  As I grow older, my younger son is 12 now, he is all into football and all his friends recognize Aggie Football.  They all recognize that play and it means a lot to me that over the history of Texas A&M Football. It is probably one of the most iconic plays that people still talk about, so I am very proud of that.”

“Andre Ware and I are cordial to each other.  When I look at it over the years, it wasn’t anything.  It was just a play in the game, and all of the timing and excitement just led to that happening.  It was nothing personal, I enjoyed watching him on TV and he was an exciting guy and I hope he is doing well.”

“I give all of the credit for that game to Coach Slocum and Bob Davie.  They came up with a great plan for us that day.  I don’t think anyone had done what we did that day, and we played with mostly linebackers and defensive backs the whole game.  Hardly any of our regular defensive linemen played, so we came with something a little different, a little quicker, a little faster.  That all led to a big win.  It probably set the blueprint for a lot of teams to compete better against Houston.  They were putting up so many points that year that nobody could stop them.”

“The game plan was me and another linebacker playing like defensive ends.  We had corners and safeties playing like all the rushing positions and playing linebackers.  That game was just a great game plan, and all of the guys just came out there and executed and did it well that day.”

“What happened on the helmet play was that I ran over the lineman, I just did a straight bullrush and ran over the guy.  When I got to Andre I reached out to grab him and I ended up grabbing the back of his helmet.  When I pulled him forward, the helmet just came off and without even thinking about it out of the exhilaration of the moment I just held it up.  It just seemed right at the time.  It wasn’t planned, I never thought about it.  Just all of the hype of Houston coming into College Station, coming in with all of these victories, beating people by scoring 60 points, It just all balled up into one big thing, and I just held it up.”

“I’m sure Andre Ware did get shell shocked.  He had to be frustrated because we had guys coming from everywhere.  I think we had three interceptions that day, also.  There were guys coming from everywhere and making plays.  We were just up for their tempo, and our tempo was just a little bit higher than theirs that day.”

“I have no idea how many pressures I had that day.  I know the whole time that I was at A&M, that is what we did, we got after the quarterback.  We had fun on defense.  I have no idea, outside of the sack record, about the other records.  It was just an exciting time for A&M football when I was there.  Defensively we managed to put together a good run, so I really couldn’t tell you how many pressures I had.”

“When I came in, A&M had a great defense and I just wanted to keep that going.  John Roper was gone, William Thomas stepped in as a former defensive back and was playing linebacker and he was quick and fast.  We just wanted to keep that legacy going.  There was no let down.  When I got there, the bar was set high and it wasn’t going to fall on my watch.  I got with a bunch of like-minded guys and we just went out and competed.  It could have been a Heisman Trophy winner, it could have been anybody, but our aim was to shut people down and that’s just what we did.”