Texas A&M Replaced By Rutgers In Gator Bowl

JACKSONVILLE, FL — A day after Texas A&M withdrew from the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl because of issues with COVID-19, Rutgers accepted an invitation to play in the Aggies' place.

Rutgers will play No. 17 Wake Forest in the Gator Bowl on Dec. 31, the bowl game announced in a release Thursday.

Rutgers was not originally bowl eligible at 5-7, but after the Aggies dropped out of the game, the NCAA Oversight Committee made the decision that with no bowl eligible teams left, preference would be given in order of 5-7 teams' academic progress rate. Rutgers was at the top of the list.

“Our team is very grateful to the NCAA Oversight Committee for providing a team to fill the slot in this year’s TaxSlayer Gator Bowl. We want to extend special thanks to our partners and the Northeast Florida community for their tremendous support over the past 24 hours,” TaxSlayer Gator Bowl Chairman John Duce said in the release. “The TaxSlayer Gator Bowl team is ready to welcome Rutgers student-athletes, coaching staff and fans to sunny Florida.”

The Gator Bowl, which will be televised on ESPN, will keep its 11 a.m. Dec. 31 time slot, meaning Rutgers has barely a week to prepare to play Wake Forest, which boasts one of the country's most prolific offenses.

"There's no such thing as missed opportunities because someone's always going to take it," Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano said in an interview posted to the Rutgers football team's Twitter. "In this instance, we're the [team] that's taking it. We're really looking forward to going out there and making the most of it."

Rutgers will participate in its first bowl game since 2014 and its first as a member of the Big Ten. The Scarlet Knights defeated North Carolina 40-21 in the 2014 Quick Lane Bowl.

The 23rd-ranked Aggies end their season at 8-4, with the high point coming in a 41-38 upset of top-ranked Alabama at Kyle Field in early October. A&M appeared poised to contend for a New Years' Six Bowl bid, but those hopes were squashed with losses to Ole Miss and LSU down the stretch.

A combination of season-ending injuries, star players leaving early for the NFL Draft and a COVID-19 outbreak left the Aggies with few options for fielding a team. Reports surfaced early in the week that A&M shut down its football operations over the weekend because of numerous positive tests among its players.

"It is unfortunate, but we just don't have enough scholarship players available to field a team," Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said in the Aggies' withdrawal announcement.