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Shockingly little is known about this game in comparison to many of the other games of the 1905 season. The Red and White stopped doing full-game write-ups at the start of 1905, and few papers from Lexington are digitized and easily accessible. Because of this, this game does not even have a full roster of players.

This was the first game of the season for both of the military schools. Though A&M had earlier reportedly scheduled a game for September 23rd against Richmond College, the game never took place, probably because Richmond didn't start their session until September 21st; this would have been significantly too little time to prepare a team (The (Richmond) Times-Dispatch, September 20th, 1905, p. 1).

Neither the Aggies nor the Cadets had been in school much longer. Both North Carolina A&M and the Virginia Military Institute opened their doors on Wednesday, September 6th, about three weeks before their opening game. Both teams had been practicing a similar amount of time.

Prospects for the Red and White were high: despite losing their long-time right tackle O. Max Gardner, who transfered to rival UNC to study law, they still were returning most of their best players from the 1904 season, and opened with the brightest prospects in their athletic history, according to Red and White. Additionally, Coach Whitney intended to continue developing the Western style of play introduced by Kienholz. As 20 Farmers boys left with the team for Lexington on the morning of September 28th, a local paper reported that they were in "excellent trim" and "confident of winning the game" (Red and White, Vol. VII No. 1 (September 1905), p. 15; The (Raleigh) Morning Post, September 28th, 1905, p. 3).

The prospects for the Virginia Military Institute were mixed: though 50 cadets tried out for the team and the material reported to be good the interest high, only six men from both the starters and the subs were returning, including starters Stude, Riley, Fraser, Beckner, Massie, and Taliaferro (who was briefly captain at the start of the season before relinquishing the lead role to Caffee) as well as former sub Caffee, who somehow earned the captain's spot (The (Baltimore) Sun, September 23rd, 1905, p. 8; The Bomb, 1905, p. 138).

Despite the report from Raleigh saying the A&M team was in great shape, this line-up disagrees with that evaluation, as several of the men starting in this game were subs for the rest of the year. This can be best explained by a newspaper clipping from Winston-Salem which wrote that Reid, Tull, Hardie, Lykes, and Gregory (all men who would go on to be starters for the Farmers) were all out on acocunt of injuries: the first 3 students sprained their arms, while Sykes had sprained his shoulder and Gregory injured his knee. This explains why so many of the year's eventual starters were out of this game, and why those who did start were rotated somewhat (The Winston-Salem Journal, September 30th, 1905, p. 1).

The game, which was played in two halves of 15 minutes each, was officiated by Virginia player (1902-1905) and future Davidson coach (1906-1907) John Pollard, who acted as umpire, and long-time A&M assistant Dr. Joel Whitaker, who worked as the referee.

Summaries of the game are fairly scant. The short snippet from the News and Observer sayed that Arthur "Babe" Wilson (the only one of the Wilson brothers on the Farmers' team this year, the other having left A&M) "played brilliantly" for the Farmers, but little else. In Red and White, the game got just a paragraph of description, rather than the multi-page reports of 1904. Calling the game "one of the hardest fought games ever played by our team," the Raleigh boys praised the work of Wilson and Tom Lykes, and added that "Babe" made the only touchdown of the game, and that in the second half Wilson made a run of 30 yards which was only stopped when he was tackled by 5 Virginian cadets (News and Observer, September 30th, 1905, p. 1; Red and White, Vol. VII No. 2 (October 1905), p. 63).

A few longer but still brief reports from other places in Virginia tell more about the work of VMI's team and the sequence of the game, though all of them still praise the work of Wilson. The Staunton Daily Leader said the game was full of "hair raising features on the part of both teams," adding that A&M won "only after desperate efforts and persistent hammering at the line." Wilson made the sole touchdown of the game just before the end of the first half by running around Fraser. No mention was made of who missed the goal kick. The second half started out well for the Virginians, but after bringing the ball to within 15 yards of the Red and White's goal, but the Red, Yellow, and White lost the ball on downs. After losing the ball, neither team made significant progress, with the ball reportedly staying roughly in the center of the field.

A common theme for the Virginian papers was crediting the loss solely to the weight and size of the Farmers. "The visitors were considerably heavier than the Virginians and this told in their favor," wrote The Lexington Gazzette; another paper ended their summary of the game by writing that "The visitors [sic] chief fort lay in their weight." Despite this, the work of C. I. Byrd, the Cadets' left halfback, was praised mightily; "Byrd... saved the [VMI] eleven from a more humiliating defeat than they were subjected to," adding that the star, who had played at VMI, Virginia Tech (VPI), the Augusta Military Academy (in Fort Defiance, VA), and the Staunton Military Academy, "goes into the contest with all the vim and energy of a young Hercules, and seldom fails to star." Other papers also lauded the work of Capt. Caffee, Bain, and Poage (The (Richmond) Times-Dispatch, September 30th, 1905, p. 7; Staunton Daily Leader, September 30th, 1905, p. 1; The Lexington Gazzette, October 4th, 1905, p. 3).

Upon learning of their victory, hundreds of the cadets back at A&M College celebrated exuberantly, marching through down town Raleigh playing on horns and drums and generally giving their college yell, enough so that the following morning's bulletin of the game in News and Observer sarcastically carried the subtitle "Streak, Yow! Yow! Wow! Wow! Hip! Hip! Say, Boys, What IS Your Yell?" The win was especially satisfying that A&M was still the only team the Cadets of VMI had lost to at home since 1896, with the Farmers also having defeated the Red, Yellow, and White in 1904 (The Winston-Salem Journal, September 30th, 1905, p. 1; News and Observer, September 30th, 1905, p. 1).

VMI would follow up their opening loss with more of the same, going on to lose to Navy 0-29, Davidson 6-8, North Carolina 0-17, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) by 0-34; the loss to Davidson was also at their home field. While this Red, Yellow, and White team was clearly not as strong as Cadet teams of the past, as evidenced by their two home losses and their 2-5-1 overall record, there were bright spots: they tied Randolph-Macon 0-0 and beat St. John's College of Maryland 11-10, as well as their rival, William & Mary, whom they defeated 23-0.