Texas Bowl: Latest News, Notes & Analysis for Texas A&M vs. Northwestern

The Texas A&M Football Team will play the Northwestern Wildcats in the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas on Dec. 31 at 11 a.m.

The game will be in Houston at Reliant Stadium.

The Aggies are healing up and have reportedly had a few spirited practices in the week leading up to the bowl game.

This is a look at the latest news and notes for the Texas Bowl.

Northwestern Cowboys?

The bowl games always feature a lot of interesting activities for the participating football players.

The Texas Bowl featured a rodeo competition in which the players from A&M and Northwestern squared off in rodeo-like events.

Both teams were given cowboy hats and participated in events like the calf-ribbon pull, stick-horse racing, roping the mascot and the offensive linemen dance competition.

Northwestern won the dance competition. It did not appear that either team had any future rodeo competitors on their squad.

Aggies Getting Healthy

The one-month layoff has been good to the Aggies.

Cyrus Gray and Coryell Judie are both participating in practice now. Both are expected to play against Northwestern.

Jeff Fuller looks healthy and has been much more explosive in practice.

Having a healthy Gray and Fuller for the first time this season would be huge for the Aggie offense.

Who Will Get the Bowl Win "Monkey" off Their Back?

The Aggies have not won a bowl game since the GalleryFurniture.com bowl in Houston in 2001.

That pales in comparison to Northwestern, who has not won a bowl game in 62 years.

The Wildcats have taken a novel approach to dealing with the streak. One of the players' parents bought a stuffed animal monkey backpack, and different players will carry the monkey around during the week leading up to the game.

There is no word on what fate awaits the monkey if Northwestern wins the game.

Area Recruits Check out Bowl Practices

Houston-area football recruits have visited both the Northwestern and Texas A&M bowl practices.

Northwestern has one verbal commitment from the Houston area in the 2012 class in Dwight White from Cy-Fair High School.

Aggie commits Matt Davis, Corey Thompson, Mike Matthews and Bralon Addison have all visited the A&M practices in Houston.

Even though the Texas Bowl is low on the bowl-prestige ladder, both schools are using the visit to Houston to their advantage. The Aggies currently have seven verbal commitments and two early signees from Houston in the 2012 class.

Northwestern has 13 Texans currently on their roster.

Both Teams Will Honor Joey Villavicencio

Aggie offensive lineman Joseph Villavicencio died tragically in a head-on collision while driving home for Christmas break.

Both Northwestern and A&M players will honor Villavicencio by wearing emblems on their helmets during the game that say "67 Joey V."

Danny Baker, a backup center for the Aggies, will wear Villavicencio's jersey No. 67 during the game.