COLLEGE STATION – Texas A&M junior running back Trayveon Williams might or might not be bound for the NFL after this season – he’s staying tightlipped on the matter – but there’s one thing Williams freely addresses: No Aggies of note to date skipping bowl games with their eyes on the next level.
“As much as Texas A&M has given us and supported us, we don’t want to be selfish and not play in a game,” Williams said Thursday. “That doesn’t even cross our minds. Every opportunity we get to wear the maroon and white uniform, we’re going to do that.”
The Aggies (8-4), trying to win nine games in a season for the first time since 2013, face North Carolina State (9-3) on New Year’s Eve in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. Two of the Wolfpack’s top players, receiver Kelvin Harmon and linebacker Germaine Pratt, are skipping the bowl game, giving the already-favored Aggies even more of an advantage.
The trend began a couple of years ago and has grown, as NFL Draft-eligible players choose to look out for their potential financial future in the pros as opposed to taking part in a postseason game that has no bearing on the national title.
A&M first-year coach Jimbo Fisher said he’ll support a player with any choice he makes on whether to play in a bowl game, but Fisher also made a couple of cases for playing a final game.
“It’s (not only) the last time you get to play with your teammates, it’s the last time you get to impress scouts,” Fisher said. “… You don’t want anybody to get injured, but that can happen at any time. Guys get hurt training for the (NFL) Combine sometimes.”
Fisher and a handful of players met with the media on Thursday at Kyle Field in advance of the Aggies breaking for a few days for Christmas and then gathering in Jacksonville on Christmas evening, to once again begin preparations for the bowl.
A&M is trying to snap a three-game losing streak in bowls, and senior defensive end Landis Durham said it’s now or never for his class.
“It’s very important for every college football player to experience winning a bowl game,” Durham said. “Right now I haven’t won one yet, so that’s what I’m trying to do – trying to go get this win.”
Durham, one of the SEC sack leaders a year ago with 10.5, will give the NFL a go following the Gator Bowl. The question is whether some of his junior teammates will do the same.
“I have not made any decisions right now, I’m just focused on the bowl game,” Williams said. “But I’m not going to sit here and say I haven’t been thinking about it, and talking it over with my family.”
Junior linebacker Tyrel Dodson declined to address his future past the Gator Bowl.
“I’m just trying to win my first bowl game here,” Dodson said.
So is junior center Erik McCoy, another NFL prospect.
“There’s not really a timetable right now,” McCoy said of any chatter about declaring for the NFL Draft. “I’m really just focusing on what I can do right now to help this team win a bowl game.”
Fisher, who led Florida State to a national title in 2013, also touched on a hot topic around college football: Whether the four-team College Football Playoff should be expanded to appease more programs and more conferences.
“Do you want the four best teams, or do you want politically the four best teams?” he said. “There’s got to be a way to figure it out. Maybe eight teams is (the answer).”
Fisher added this all was inevitable once the playoff system started in 2014.
“I don’t know the answer, I really don’t,” he said. “I will say this: I bet it expands eventually. You’ve got too many (league) commissioners whose teams are being left out, and there’s too much money to be made. … Everybody is voicing for their own league.
“You’re always going to have this controversy and I think it will eventually expand, because everybody’s going to have to get a piece of the pie.”
In other A&M football news, the program announced the signing of tight end Jalen Wydermyer of Dickinson on Thursday, giving the Aggies 23 signees in their class of 2019. Fisher said he ultimately intends to sign 26 in the class. 247Sports.com ranks A&M’s class third nationally behind fellow SEC members Alabama and Georgia and just ahead of another SEC foe in LSU.
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