Texas vs. Texas A&M, back so soon?

Hear us out.

The Longhorns (4-5) need to win two more games to reach a bowl, with three tries left. A Thanksgiving date vs. TCU looks extremely difficult, but Texas has a puncher's chance home this weekend against West Virginia, as a four-point underdog, and then good odds the next weekend at Stillwater to face a disappointing Oklahoma State team.

Win two, lose the other one, and the Horns are 6-6.

Texas A&M (6-3) is already bowl-eligible, but few will give them a shot at getting win No. 7. The Aggies barely beat Louisiana-Monroe at home Saturday to snap a three-game losing streak and are at Auburn this weekend, then home vs. Mizzou and LSU to finish the year.

It's a scenario bowl executives could only dream up. And it could fall right in the lap of the Advocare Texas Bowl, played in Houston, which gets the pick of the third team from the Big 12 after selections for the College Football Playoff and the Sugar Bowl, and a pool of six SEC teams after the CFB Playoff, the Sugar and the Capital One Bowl.

The Longhorns aren't the third-best team in the Big 12, not by any measure, but that matters less than TV ratings and traveling fan base. And the Aggies, if they stay at six wins, don't figure to climb up the bowl-desirability ladder, meaning they should be there for the Houston Bowl's taking.

"From the outside looking in, it'd be a home run," Steve Beck, executive director of the Military Bowl (ACC vs. American), told Horns247. "They may see it differently ... I'm not in their shoes, but wow. You don't get a lot of chances for something like that."

The fierce rivals haven't played since 2011, when Justin Tucker's game-winning field goal gave Texas the last laugh over the SEC-bound Aggies, whose departure from the Big 12 was in part because of the Longhorn Network. In the years since, the battles have instead played out on the recruiting turf.

Texas leads the series 76-37-5.



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