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Few things went according to plan on the day of the first A&M football game of 1906; few things, that is, other than the execution of the Red and White ball players. While the team came out at a screaming pace, the game was played at the Fair Grounds rather than on the new on-campus athletic field the A&M Athletic Association had been attempting to construct since late in 1905. The construction had been delayed significantly by heavy rains in the Raleigh area; those same rains plagued the game between the Aggies and Yellow Jackets, with the rain reportedly an increasingly persistent rain making an already-cold day even more miserable (News and Observer, September 30th, 1906, p. 13; The Raleigh Times, October 2nd, 1906, p. 7).

Given that neither team had played yet in 1906, not to mention the drastically changed rules of the game, it was hard to say what the game would hold beforehand. With spectators looking forward to the game's "brilliant New Features," including "The Forward Pass, Offside Kick, End Runs and Lightning Line Plunges," the game was expected to be exciting as much for the chance to see the new rules in action as the playing of the colleges (The Raleigh Times, September 29th, 1906, p. 11). Raleigh papers touted Randolph-Macon's incoming team as "big, strong and very aggressive," adding that Coach Heston would need to keep his best players in against the Virginians (News and Observer, September 30th, 1906, p. 13).

One final feature of interest of this game was the day of the week that it was played on: a Monday. So why would the Farmers play a football game at home on a Monday, especially given that there was not another local game taking place on that day? As The News and Observer put it, "This game has been arranged for Monday for one special reason and that is to allow the school girls a chance to see the games." And see the game they did; it was estimated that 2-300 of the game's roughly 800 spectators were women. As will be seen later, they did have a slight impact on the game (News and Observer, September 23rd, 1906, p. 13).

The first half, which lasted 30 minutes, kicked off at 3:30 PM in a drizzle, but soon after the game started, the rain came started coming down harder. After a similar amount of time, Wilson scored the first touchdown for the Farmers, reported to have taken place between 3-1/2 and 5 minutes of play (The Raleigh Times, October 1st, 1906, p. 7). Due to the wind and rain, Frank Thompson missed the kick, leaving the score 5-0 in favor of the Aggies.

Unfortunately, much of the rest of the game was not described in great detail. As The News and Observer put it, "it would be idle to say much" in describing the remainder of the game. About 3 minutes after his first touchdown, Wilson made a second touchdown, and again the kick was missed, this time reportedly due to the wind; the score was then 10-0. After anouther 4 minutes of play, Hardie carried the ball over the goal line, and 4-1/2 minutes later, he carried it over again. In the remaining 15 minutes of the half, Wilson got two more touchdowns "by some of his snake-like dodging and running." Successful goal kicks were made for three of the last four touchdowns, with one kicked by Thompson and two kicked by Hardie, making the score 33-0. That concluded the scoring of the first half.

One event--called "The feature of the game" by one paper--wasn't even football related. As the rain moved from a drizzle to a steady pour, "Some two or three hundred school girls took it into their heads to get out of the rain, just as A. & M. was preparing to kick a goal from placement. Over the field they went in a pelting shower, white dresses and flower-garden hats waving and nodding furiously with the flutter until they were finally ensconced in the covered grandstand" some two hundred yards from the field. Though it's not specified when the event took place, it was probably in the first half, when the rain was reportedly the lightest.

The second half lasted only 10 minutes; because of this, it was not described in much detail. "Pap" Harris took the place of Eskridge at quarterback before the start of the second half; other changes included replacing Stroud at center with Temple, putting in Whitehurst at fullback in place of Shuford, who moved to right halfback (taking Wilson's place), and Victor Van Sykes replacing Perkins at right guard.

Despite the sparseness of plays described in the second half, the one recorded play was phenomental; it was, according to one paper, "The most spectacular play of the game." On a play that started around midfield, Harris passed the ball to Hardie on "a long forward pass"; once in possession of the ball, Hardie "galloped the rest of the way for a touchdown, dodging what little was of opposition in his way." After scoring his touchdown, Hardie made the final goal kick of the game to make the score 39-0 in favor of the Farmers. Notably, this was the first successful forward pass for a touchdown in school history.

Though Harris made several fumbles in the second half, the Yellow Jackets were entirely incapable of taking advantage of them; reportedly, the Ashland boys made a first down just once, on a 9-1/2 yard run by Newman, and made positive gains just two or three times total. According to viewers, Newman, Yancey, Powell, and Harlan "were most conspicuous in what little successful work the visitors could accomplish." The Ashland boys "put up a plucky fight" but were ultimately outweighed 175 pounds to 153.

For the Farmers, the difficulty was not finding who to praise, but who not to praise. Eskridge work at quarterback was called "excellent," and Hardie's work was "scarcely less brilliant than Wilson's." For his part, Captain Wilson continued to be the team's usual star player; "the brilliant running of Wilson," according to The News and Observer, "lost the applause which it deserved for want of obstacles encountered." Beebe was also praised. The only criticism the Techs faced was that the left tackle position seemed to be a little weak.

Overall, the game was a success for the Farmers; they were so successful that Raleigh papers concluded that the sweeping rule reforms were "more strenuous on paper than they are in actual play"; the only difference noted by both papers was the cap of timeouts on three per half, which greatly decreased the number of unnecessary stoppages per game. Both papers also commented on the frequency with which A&M attempted forward passes were both attempted and completed by the Farmers throughout the game. While Randolph-Macon failed to complete their sole attempt, the Farmers passed "with great results," though papers were sure to mention "it is doubtful if it would avail much with a team anywhere nearly equal in weight and training," predicting that in a regular game, passes would be "of scarcely more value that occaisional old-style "trick" play[s]" (The Raleigh Times, October 2nd, 1906, p. 7; News and Observer, October 2nd, 1906, p. 5; Red and White, Vol. VII No. 2 (October, 1906), p. 67).

The Ashland boys went on to have a less-than-stellar season; following their loss to the Farmers, the Yellow Jackets lost to Virginia (0-38), Washington & Lee (4-8), George Washington University (0-22), and Richmond College (0-17), and defeated Richmond College (6-0), Roanoke College (17-0), and rival William & Mary (6-4) for an overall record of 2-5. One redeeming factor to their otherwise-low season was that their fullback, Yancey, made the All-Virginia team in his position, one of just two players not from Virginia or VPI (The (Richmond) Times-Dispatch, December 24th, 1906, p. 6).