COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M football team has accepted an invitation to play in the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas on December 31 at 11 a.m. inside Houston’s Reliant Stadium. The Aggies will face off against the Northwestern Wildcats from the Big 10 Conference.
“We’re excited about the opportunity to finish this season by playing in a great bowl game against a great institution like Northwestern,” Interim head coach Tim DeRuyer said. “We’re also looking forward to getting back to practice and preparing for a football game. It’s a great opportunity for us to represent Texas A&M in the city of Houston and send our seniors out the right way.”
The bowl invitation is the 33rd all-time for Texas A&M which has now made a bowl appearance in each of the last three seasons after going to the AT&T Cotton Bowl a year ago and the AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl following the 2009 campaign.
It also marks the third postseason trip for the Aggies to the city of Houston, where they also played in the 1977 Bluebonnet Bowl and the 2001 Galleryfurniture.com Bowl, both at the Astrodome.
Texas A&M (6-6, 4-5 Big 12) will be searching for its first bowl victory since its last visit to Houston when the Aggies defeated TCU 28-9 in the 2001 Galleryfurniture.com Bowl.
Northwestern, meanwhile, finished the regular season with a similar 6-6 record that included a 3-5 mark in Big 10 play. The Wildcats won four of their final five games this fall to earn their fourth straight bowl appearance under head coach Pat Fitzgerald.