Mike Elko is waking up the sleeping giant in Aggieland
In the season before Mike Elko took over at Duke, the Blue Devils won three games. They were in the midst of three-straight losing seasons.
Elko left Texas A&M as defensive coordinator to become Duke’s head coach and in his first year in Durham he had nine wins. The next season, the Blue Devils won eight.
Duke football was back on the map and it was in large part to Elko righting the ship as he become a hot name in the coaching carousel before landing in College Station.
Elko is already doing the same thing – quickly – at Texas A&M.
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For years, for far too long, the Aggies were always the sleeping giant of college football. But over the last 25 years, Texas A&M had double-digit wins only once. There was so much hope that Jimbo Fisher was the perfect coach to come in and save the program. He wasn’t.
In a surprising bit of candor Saturday night while Elko was riding high after beating LSU in College Station, he addressed how he sees A&M now.
“We’re very honest,” Elko said. “We’re very open. This is a real program. It’s not fake. It’s not a politician running this program, talking fast and BS-ing everybody. This is a real program and for all the recruits out there, this is a real place.
“If you want to be really good at football, this is a really good place to be.”
Another thing is for sure: The Texas A&M commits love him.
“(Saturday night) was special,” four-star OL commit Connor Carty said. “But it’s no surprise to me that this season is going the way it is and they aren’t done yet. Elko hasn’t even been here for a year and he’s working with the talent that he has. Once this first class gets here and things start to get rolling in that aspect, we are going to take it to a new level and everyone will be seeing us for a while.”
Four-star cornerback commit Deyjhon Pettaway said: “Coach Elko set standards and the team meets those standards in practice and then it translates to the game. They play for each other and they want to win more than ever.
“Rebranding a program is hard but I knew coach Elko would be the perfect coach to do so and he’s all about his players.”
The Aggies are 7-1, their only loss a 23-13 dud to Notre Dame in Elko’s first game. Texas A&M is ranked No. 10 in the AP Top 25. A big matchup at South Carolina awaits this weekend before a cupcake against New Mexico State, then a visit to usually-tough Auburn before closing the regular season with a showdown against Texas.
It was this time last year that Texas A&M was reeling after close losses to Alabama, Tennessee and Ole Miss mixed in with a victory over South Carolina. Fisher was fired nearly a year ago on Nov. 12. It was a low point for the program and where it was headed.
And then Elko was hired two weeks later before the end of November.
The conversation is no longer about being a sleeping giant or getting over the hump or that excruciating feeling that the Aggies are this close. Texas A&M dominated LSU in the second half of its 38-23 victory Saturday night, outscoring the Tigers 31-6 after the break.
If that’s not great coaching, what is? And top prospects recognize it.
“The players believe in the coaches,” four-star DB commit Cobey Sellers said. “The coaches want to win, the players want to win and that’s what it’s all about.”
“Coach Elko is a premier coach,” four-star linebacker commit Noah Mikhail said.
“He has changed the culture of that program and turned it into a hard-working, blue-collar type of place. He’s brought in the right people and is as down-to-earth as it gets. His in-game coaching ability is as high as it gets.”
It shows. And instead of what could have been, Texas A&M is talking about what could be.
