Tom Hart offers a national perspective on the future of A&M football

Key notes from Tom Hart interview

• Big picture, the problem with four teams in the playoff, there are years where there are five that are worthy, three that are worthy, and six that are worthy. I hate this for Aggie fans. I hate it for the SEC.
   
• Part of me likes A&M being left out only because we needed a trigger point to expand the playoff. The Pac-12 did not have the stones to stand up the playoff because they should've been the ones pining for it. The SEC hasn’t needed to argue for it because they have proven they can win under this format. Now, Greg Sankey's mortal enemy — the ACC — got two in, and one of Sankey’s teams got left out. Maybe this is what makes him start arguing for the expansion.
   
• What makes the NFL great is the diversity of it. If you have a bad year, you are going to get a good draft pick. Teams come and go. There are down years. In college football, you have 117 other fan bases that are left twiddling their thumbs on the outside of the playoff, just hoping to have a great year next year.
   
• You cannot fake the fans in the SEC. I was doing college baseball in South Carolina years ago. I had an ESPN golf shirt. Years ago, there was a good team from the West Coast in Cal Poly. A gentleman asked me, "How good is Cal Poly? I like their lefty, but I don't think that first baseman hits 20 home runs." He knew more about them than I did! These fans are educated! They know what they are talking about. While college football is very much still a regional sport, that is not the case in this league. In the SEC, you watch every game in the league, and you watch the games that matter in the other leagues. That's how the fans in the SEC treat college football.
   
• Texas A&M will be in the conversation from now on. The fire will be lit the morning after the Orange Bowl. You have to go in there and take care of business and prove they're better than North Carolina and that team in South Bend. Do that, and you're postseason darlings. That fire is growing, and you're just throwing logs on it.
   
• Buzz Williams has a great team. Wofford shoots a ton of threes. It'll be a good test, and it'll be a fun game because Buzz's team has momentum.