Texas A&M football team unable to play in Gator Bowl due to COVID

The Texas A&M football team cannot play in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl vs. Wake Forest because of COVID issues internally.

Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M football program becomes the first team to not be able to play in their holiday season bowl game because of COVID.

The Texas A&M Aggies were slated to play the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl down in Jacksonville. This was going to be a very interesting non-conference matchup between the ACC and the SEC. However, Wake Forest is now without a team to play, and would need another bowl team to drop out to have any shot of playing somebody this holiday season.

The payout for the Gator Bowl is $5.3 million and if the bowl game is not played then no team gets the payout.

Texas A&M football: Aggies unable to play in TaxSlayer Gator Bowl due to COVID

Unfortunately, there will probably be other teams unable to play in their holiday season bowl they worked so hard for. While Texas A&M had a decent season by A&M standards, Wake Forest had one of its best years ever and does not have anybody to play this holiday season. Obviously, Dave Clawson’s team isn’t mad at the Aggies, but this is the reality of yet another wave of COVID-19.

Because the Gator Bowl has a higher prestige than many of the mid-tier bowl games out there, Wake Forest will almost certainly get somebody to play if another bowl game participant drops out elsewhere. With this being the heart of bowl season, it will be very interesting to see what games will be played and which ones will unfortunately have to be canceled for this year.

Hopefully, everyone on the Texas A&M football team makes a speedy recovery from COVID.

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