That event was the year before I arrived, but my older brother was there (a fish in fall '81). Here is what I heard from him and a few others:

I'm sure you noticed numerous whistles during Aggieband performances. This game was against Rice, and they are the only ones I found that actually had the correct whistle pattern. During the middle of the drill, someone in the Rice stands blew a whistle and about half of the bungle rank followed the extraneous whistle - and they could never get back together. Eventually the drum majors called a halt and the whole band left the field.

That is why (at least while I was there) that no whistles were used after step-off during the Rice game. We found it ammusing the number of whistles during the drill - especially in '83 - in an attempt to through us off.

After I left school, I worked with a guy that was in the mob at that time. He swears that the whistle did not come from their band, but I know to many guys that were there that said it definitely came from their section.

As a side note, the tape of that game has been removed from the library. Col Haney had it in his office, but I'm not sure where it is now.

Donald Fleitman '85