Texas A&M (8-4) will cap off the 2024 season and coach Mike Elko's inaugural campaign in style, as the Aggies will face USC (6-6) in the annual Las Vegas Bowl on Friday night with a chance to finish the year with nine wins for the first time since the 2020 season.

Defensively, it will be tough for USC to slow down the Aggies, specifically through the air without cornerback Jaylin Smith. The 49 points Notre Dame put up on the Trojans in the regular-season finale were the most they’ve allowed all year, though most of the damage was done on the ground. A shootout might be the best-case scenario for the Trojans.

Las Vegas began blooming on the Nevada desert nearly a century ago thanks in part to the building of the Hoover Dam, and now Texas A&M coach Mike Elko hopes his program’s holidays sojourn to the bright lights on the sand helps bring a similar mushrooming for the Aggies.

Texas A&M football plays USC for the first time in decades Friday in the Las Vegas Bowl. A ninth win would be quite the punctuation mark for Mike Elko's first year as head coach for the Aggies. Former head coaches Jimbo Fisher and Kevin Sumlin, Elko's predecessors, accomplished a nine-win season a total of four times.

Texas A&M's 2025 recruiting class features some of the best high school athletes in the country, including four-star linebacker Noah Mikhail and four-star Edge Marco Jones, two of the top defenders out of California.

Despite a midseason quarterback change, the Trojans still have plenty of offensive weapons that the Aggie defense will need to take note of.