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A&M's 1902 season opened the season with a slow start, going three straight games without a win and two losses out of three games played. Virginia Tech's season had started slowly in an entirely different way. The Maroon and Orange had played just one game to this point in the year, played five days before against Washington & Lee in Lynchburg, Virginia. The game was tied 0-0 throughout the duration until, with 25 seconds left to play, Washington & Lee scored a touchdown after the crowd unintentionally interfered with Virginia Polytechnic's players. The Polytech's refused to complete the game in protest and thus forfeited the game with a final score recorded of 6-0 in favor of Washington & Lee. The Maroon and Orange didn't conceded the defeat, though, even recording in their yearbook that the game ended in a 0-0 tie (The Richmond Dispatch, October 17th, 1902, p. 5; The Bugle, 1903, p. 132).

The A&M team did not exactly get a great start to the game to help them in their attempt to end their 3-game skid. According to the The Agromeck, the football teams' train ride took "all night and part of the next day," and the Raleigh boys played without stopping for a rest that night.

Descriptions of the game vary greatly from the few sources that exist, though only one thorough description of the game exists. The Agromeck wrote "we played the Virginians to a standstill," with the score standing 6-5 in favor of A&M until there were just 4 minutes left on the clock. "Ah! Those fatal four minutes lost the game for us." The report by the Associated Press, printed in the News and Observer, claimed that "The Virginia boys outplayed their visitors at every point. The A. and M. men made the required five yards in three downs only once or twice throughout the game." A third description of the game, from The (Richmond) Times wrote "The teams were evenly matched, and the game was only won after a hard-fought battle" (The Agromeck, Vol. 1 (1903), p. 147; News and Observer, October 19th, 1902, p. 1; The (Richmond) Times, October 19th, 1902, p. 2). It should be noted that it is possible that the Vol. 4, No. 2 issue of Red and White may have contained a description of the game, but the issue is sadly lost to history.

As it turns out, the descriptions of the game speaking favorably of the Red and White were a bit grandiose: According to the most detailed existing report of the game, found in The Richmond Dispatch, "Had it not been for the continual fumbling on the part of the Virginia Tech, the score would have been much more in their favor," later going on to estimate that the Maroon and Orange would have scored at least 4 touchdowns in the first half if not for ""continual fumbling at critical moments." The Raleigh boys never made a first down in the first half and punted the ball away every time they got it. The Virginians "ploughed through North Carolina's line at will," and punted the ball only once in the first half.

The first of the game's two 20-minute halves opened with a 45-yard kick, which A&M returned to the 15 yard line but failed to advance further. The Raleigh boys punted the ball away after 2 tries and failure to make a down, attempted to kick the ball away; the ball reportedly landed out of bounds. On the second play of Virginia Polytechnic's drive came what the Times and Dispatch described as "the feature of the game." Carpenter skirted around the left end of the line and tore off a 75-yard run, being stopped at the 2 yard line. Reportedly, "He was tackled by six different men, and once thrown off his feet." The Virginians made quick work of their gains, and soon thereafter pushed Counselman over the goal line for a touchdown. VT missed the kick, and the score stood 0-5 in favor of the Maroon and Orange.

After that, A&M kicked the ball off to the Blacksburg boys. The Polytechs began driving down the field, but at some point in the drive fumbled the ball. A&M capitalized on this, and an unspecified A&M player ran the fumble back for a touchdown; a second player made the goal kick, and suddenly, the floundering Red and White were in the lead, 6-5, with little time left in the first half. The only action remaining before the second half was a 40 yard punt by Carpenter. A&M's returner was "nailed in his tracks" before the ball could be advanced.

A&M kicked off to Virginia to start the first half, and Sykes returned the ball 30 yards. "Then, the usual thing began. North Carolina would lose on downs, and Virginia Polytechnic on fumbling. Hardly once could North Carolina make their five yards, and never did Virginia Polytechnic fail, except to lose on fumbling." With about four minutes left in the second half, Virginia began the drive that would eventually end the game. Here is where the two detailed descriptions of the game differ. The Agromeck wrote "The ball was kicked to our full-back and advanced to our fifteen-yard-line, from where we tried to farther advance it. In the first rush our half-back made five yards, but some one [sic] took the ball out of his hands on our twenty-yard line; and Carpenter, of V. P. I., hitting over the line, they gained the coveted touchdown just as time was called." It should be noted that, assuming it is true that Virginia Polytechnic never failed to make a first down, A&M would not have been at the receiving end of a kick. That is to say, one of the accounts of this game is factually incorrect. The Richmond Dispatch wrote that the Virginians' winning drive began at A&M's 45-yard linecarrying the ball down the field with a series of "terrific line bucks." Oddly, the paper wrote that the touchdown was made "shortly after time was called," which means VT kicked their successful goal kick with no time on the clock. A&M lost the game 6-11 (The Richmond Dispatch, October 19th, 1902, p. 2).

Though they lost the game, the Red and White were still not totally displeased at the outcome. For a great part of the year, A&M was the only team to have scored against VT, which, though mostly by fluke, was made more impressive when considering that Virginia Polytechnic's next game was a 0-0 standstill against UNC. The next game for the Maroon and Black kept that trend true, with the Blacksburg boys defeating Georgetown 28-0 about two weeks later. The claim was finally wrought wrong on November 15th, when VT played then-powerhouse Virginia; Virginia won 6-0. The claim was further invalidated that Thanksgiving, when VT closed out their 3-2-1 season with a 50-5 thrashing of Virginia Military Institute in Norfolk, Virginia.

Perhaps the most significant loss during the game, however, was an injury to team captain Gardner. Though the reports did not describe how and at what point the injury took place, Gardner sat out of the remainder of the Red and White's season. Gardner was visited at his hotel after the injury by VT's president, J. M. McBryde, who brought his family's personal physician, as well as a second physician, and "gave him all the medical attention possible."

Despite the loss, the A&M team managed to make good connections with the VT team. Both being land-grant schools, VT and A&M formed an early rivalry, which was only emboldened while UNC refused to play A&M from 1905 through 1918. President McBryde sent a letter to the cadets of A&M College following the game wrote that the A&M team "impressed us most favorably" and added that the owner of the hotel at which the Red and White stayed described them as "the most gentlemanly set of young men he had ever entertained." McBryde closed the letter by hoping the teams could continue their athletic relations, writing "such games as the one played here are the kind needed to establish foot-ball as a clean, manly and fair trial of athletic prowess" (Red and White, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Nov. 1902), pp. 16-17).