After another disappointing season under now-fired head coach Jimbo Fisher, the 7-5 Texas A&M Aggies limp into Wednesday’s Texas Bowl with little motivation and fewer resources. 

The Aggies will be without their head coach, offensive coordinator, starting quarterback and 11 players with at least 350 snaps this year. 

The future is brighter with new head coach Mike Elko taking over but he won’t be coaching in the Texas Bowl, and next year’s roster should look drastically different. 

Meanwhile, the 9-4 Oklahoma State Cowboys come into Wednesday’s college football bowl matchup on a relative high. They engineered one of the nation’s biggest turnarounds this season, starting with non-conference losses to South Alabama and Iowa State but ending in the Big 12 Championship Game. 

As a result, very few Pokes hit the portal or opted out for the Texas Bowl, and very few coaches are better at motivating their players for bowl games than Mike Gundy. 

Based on motivation and availability alone, the Texas Bowl is pretty easy to handicap. 

(9 p.m. ET, ESPN)

Exactly how did the Pokes turn the year around? 

It was essentially two things. 

First, they established Alan Bowman as the starting quarterback and he proved to be a steady, albeit unspectacular, hand under center. 

Secondly, they started feeding Ollie Gordon II and that move made all the difference. 

Gordon was among the nation’s most prolific and effective running backs this year. He racked up more than 1,600 yards and 20 scores in 13 games, including a three-game non-conference schedule where he only received 19 carries. 

He was the nation’s second-leading rusher, trailing only Troy’s Kimani Vidal. He averaged 6.3 yards per carry on more than 250 attempts. 

Gordon was named the Doak Walker Award winner for his efforts, which was well deserved.

Basically, once the Pokes started moving the ball on the ground through Gordon they started winning games. Oklahoma State ran the ball a lot and won a lot of games, seven of its final eight, to be exact.  

So, that begs the question: Can the Aggies stop Gordon and the Pokes’ rushing attack? 

The answer is yes – at least on paper, given Texas A&M’s rush defensive metrics are elite. 

But several key Aggie rush defenders hit the portal or opted out of the Texas Bowl, including starting defensive lineman Walter Nolen, defensive tackle McKinnley Jackson, edge Fadil Diggs and linebacker Edgerrin Cooper. 

For context, those four accounted for 77 of Texas A&M’s 207 run stops this season, per Pro Football Focus. Cooper posted the team’s highest PFF rush defense grade (87.6) behind 37 run stops. 

It’s hard to imagine a severely shorthanded Aggies front seven staying in front of the nation’s best running back. 

Even at full strength, Texas A&M wasn’t an elite rush defense against man-blocking rush schemes, something Gundy and the Pokes run repeatedly. 

While the Cowboys should move the ball easily and efficiently, can they stop the Texas A&M attack? 

Oklahoma State’s defense is nothing special, but I don’t think that’ll matter, considering how shorthanded the Aggies’ offense is. 

Texas A&M is starting a third-string quarterback, Jaylen Henderson, who’s prepping for the bowl game with an interim head coach, Elijah Robertson, who’s already taken the Syracuse defensive coordinator job and will be departing for upstate New York after the bowl game.

Henderson will attempt to generate an effective aerial attack without two starting offensive linemen and three starting wide receivers. 

All 11 of Oklahoma State’s defensive starters are playing in the Texas Bowl, and that unit shouldn’t have a problem stopping Texas A&M’s second-stringers.

Ultimately, Texas A&M is a walking corpse waiting to be revived by Elko in 2024, and the current Aggies don’t have the playmakers to battle with Gundy, Gordon and Co. 

Meanwhile, Oklahoma State is excited to cap off an exciting 2023 and ready to build toward a potentially special 2024 with an experienced returning roster and less competition at the top of the Big 12 (with Texas and Oklahoma departing for the SEC). 

Which brings us back to the motivational factor. 

Again, few coaches are better at motivating their players for bowl season than Gundy.

The Cowboys are 11-6 against the spread (ATS) in bowl games under the long-time head coach’s tutelage, which includes a 7-1 ATS run across the last eight bowl appearances. 

The highly motivated Pokes should cruise past the shorthanded, lifeless Aggies in Wednesday night’s Texas Bowl, and I’ll happily bet on that exact result. 

Personally, I’d rather lay the ML juice than bet the Pokes over a field goal, but either is good.

Oklahoma State ML (-175) at BetMGM | Play to (-200)