Texas A&M Sits Out Its Bye at 4-4: South Carolina Next on November 7, and the Bowl Math Is Tight

There is no Texas A&M game today, and for a fan base that has lived through a 4-4 start, USA TODAY's bye-week file suggests that may be the good news. The Aggies are off in Week 9, a break that arrives a week after a 31-20 loss at No. 13 Alabama - a game Texas A&M led going into the fourth quarter before it got away, the latest entry in a season that opened 50-0 over Missouri State and 48-20 over Arizona State, then ran into Kentucky, LSU and Missouri.

The return is not a soft landing. Texas A&M comes off the bye on Saturday, November 7, at South Carolina - 3 p.m. Eastern, 2 p.m. Central, at Williams-Brice Stadium - against a Gamecocks team that has won back-to-back games against Florida and Tennessee, both of which were ranked in the top 20 of the Coaches Poll when South Carolina beat them. After that the closing run reads: No. 17 Tennessee at home on November 14, at Oklahoma on November 21, and No. 11 Texas in College Station on Friday, November 27.

That closing run is also the bowl math. The American-Statesman's assessment, carried in the USA TODAY network's coverage, is that the 4-4 Aggies sit outside most major predictors' bowl projections right now and would need a few more wins to make a bowl - which, on a schedule with three ranked opponents in the final four games, means the wins have to come against the hardest part of the slate. The same file notes the spoiler's prize at the end of it: a final-week win over Texas could doom a Longhorns team with little margin for error in its own postseason picture.

Houston's other college rooting interests are quiet today as well - the University of Houston is on its own bye this weekend before hosting Cincinnati on November 7. So the state's loudest Saturday is happening elsewhere, and the Aggies' season now compresses into four November Saturdays that will decide whether this year ends in a bowl or in a rebuild conversation.