The Aggies will play in front of a very friendly audience in the postseason, as they will head to Houston to play Oklahoma State in the Academy Sports & Outdoors Texas Bowl. The game will be played Dec. 27 at 5:45 p.m. central time.
The Aggies (7-5) will face the Cowboys (8-4) for the first time since the A&M left the Big 12 Conference after the 2011 season. Oklahoma State had a solid second half of the season, winning four straight before being dismantled by Oklahoma 34-16 in Bedlam.
Having played a brutal schedule capped by a 50-7 dismantling at LSU to end the season, the Aggies will at least enter the game healthy. The Cowboys, on the other hand, will not. Oklahoma State will play without their best wide receiver, Tylan Wallace, who tore his ACL against Iowa State Oct. 26. Quarterback Spencer Sanders had thumb surgery in mid-November and likely won't be able to play either. Safety Trey Sterling was ejected for targeting in the second half of the Oklahoma game and will be suspended for the first half of the bowl game.
The absence of Sanders and Wallace does not, however, mean the Cowboys will be lacking on offense. Running back Chuba Hubbard leads the nation with 1,936 yards rushing, has scored 21 touchdowns and averages 6.3 yards per carry. He will be a challenge for a Texas A&M defense which gave up 129 yards a game on the ground in 2019.
The Cowboys were in a number of shootouts in 2019, giving up an average of 27 points a 418 yards per game. In spite of their troubles against Georgia and LSU, the Aggies averaged 30 points per game and 400 yards of total offense in 2019.
Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher is 6-2 in bowl games, including last year's 52-13 rout of N.C. State in the 2018 Gator Bowl. Oklahoma State's Mike Gundy is 9-4 in bowl games.
