Texas A&M Fans Say Goodbye To Jimbo Fisher Era After Texas Bowl Loss to OSU

The 2023 season was one to forget for Texas A&M, so it was only fitting it ended with another loss.

Oklahoma State defeated the Aggies 31-23 in Wednesday's Texas Bowl at NRG Stadium in Houston. The Big 12 representative improved to 10-4 on the campaign and will have some momentum heading into 2024 after it bounced back from a loss to Texas in the conference title game.

Texas A&M cannot say the same after it fell to 7-6 and continued a theme of losing to the quality opponents on the schedule in the same season in which Jimbo Fisher was fired as head coach.

To be fair to the SEC team, it was far from full strength with a number of players missing due to injuries, opt outs and the transfer portal. It was fighting an uphill battle from the opening kickoff, and things got even worse when starting quarterback Jaylen Henderson was injured on the first snap of the game.

Rather than criticizing a shorthanded team, much of the social media reaction focused on the end of an era at Texas A&M:

Facing quality competition has been an issue all season for the Aggies, who lost to Miami in nonconference play before dropping games against Alabama, Tennessee, Ole Miss and LSU in the SEC.

They are attempting to establish themselves as one of those top programs as they enter the Mike Elko era, and beating a ranked team that was in the Big 12 Championship Game was an opportunity to make a statement on a national stage that things might be changing.

Instead, Oklahoma State jumped out to a commanding 24-6 halftime lead with Alan Bowman picking apart the secondary and Ollie Gordon II finding room to run.

Given Texas A&M's roster situation, it seemed like the second half would be nothing more than a formality.

To the Aggies' credit, their defense started forcing turnovers in the second half to set the stage for a potential comeback. Rushing touchdowns for Marcel Reed and Amari Daniels and a long field goal from Randy Bond cut the deficit to one score in the fourth quarter, but a late Hail Mary attempt was intercepted to ice the game.

It didn't help the comeback cause that Daniels lost a fumble when the Aggies were deep in Cowboys' territory, but Oklahoma State proved to be too much with Bowman throwing for 402 yards, Gordon rushing for 118, and Rashod Owens (10 catches for 164 yards and two touchdowns) and Brennan Presley (16 catches for 152 yards) dominating Texas A&M's secondary.

Perhaps things would have been different if the SEC representative was at full strength.