At Friday night's Cotton Bowl Classic at Cowboys Stadium, the Joeckel family of Arlington will be rooting for Texas A&M.
It's an easy choice considering twin brothers Matt and Luke Joeckel both play on the A&M football team.
"It makes for fun weekends," said Dave Joeckel, the twins' father. "Excitement, that's probably the best way to describe how I feel. And pride that my sons are playing in the Cotton Bowl. They've worked hard. This is a great reward for that hard work."
At the 77th annual Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma, Matt and Luke Joeckel will get to play before their hometown crowd.
The Joeckel twins have been playing football since grade school, when their father was their coach.
"They've always been very competitive. They were always doing something competing against each other and I think it helped them both," said Dave Joeckel.
The twins then played at Arlington High School. Luke Joeckel, the lineman, blocked for his brother Matt Joeckel, the quarterback.
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"Luke is kind of the big, more quiet type," said Reecanne Joeckel, their mother. "Matt is more of the talkative, quarterback type. But in a lot of ways they're very similar."
When it came time to select a school, one thing came as no surprise.
"We always knew they'd end up going to the same place," said Dave Joeckel.
One thing that wasn't expected was where they chose to go.
"I played [football] at [Texas] Tech," said Dave Joeckel. "[The twins] were Red Raiders their whole life growing up."
Reecanne Joeckel said the family had a bit of explaining to do.
"Being Texas Tech people, friends were like, ‘How did you let that happen?' But, [Texas A&M] was the perfect fit," she said.
And so are the twins.
At College Station, Luke and Matt Joeckel have exact same class schedule, they travel together and they're roommates.
"They get along really well, considering they're brothers and considering they spend that much time together," their mother said. "They're each other's best friends."
