In former Duke coach Mike Elko, Texas A&M made a hire that checks three important boxes:
Familiarity with the program. Elko was the defensive coordinator for the school’s best seasons under former coach Jimbo Fisher, including a 9-1 finish during the COVID-abbreviated 2020 season that saw the Aggies come up just short of an appearance in the College Football Playoff.
Power Five experience. Elko won nine games in his debut season at Duke and had this year’s team in the Top 25 before injuries took their toll in the second half. The only other modern-era Duke coach to spend fewer than four years with the program was Steve Spurrier, who led the Blue Devils for three seasons before being hired at Florida.
A defensive focus. Elko’s blue-collar approach stands in contrast to his four immediate predecessors at A&M. Failed hires Dennis Franchione, Mike Sherman, Kevin Sumlin and Jimbo Fisher brought backgrounds on offense to College Station.
Given the roster in place and the resources at hand, Elko has the chance to perform a similarly quick turnaround and bring the Aggies back into contention in the obscenely deep SEC.
Here’s what the new hire means and what to expect:
A high-floor hire
Elko represents a safe, substance-over-style hire even if he lacks the same name value or national reputation as Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Washington’s Kalen DeBoer or even Kentucky’s Mark Stoops, who seemed on the verge of leaving the Wildcats late on Saturday night before deciding to stay in Lexington.
This isn’t a bad thing: Jimbo Fisher brought a national championship and a Texas-size ego to A&M, and we’re aware of how his inability to adapt and evolve contributed to one of the most disappointing coaching tenures in recent SEC history.
Elko will stress defense and player development as a starting point. As a coach, one thing you learn at Duke − or don’t learn, and then lose a bunch before getting fired − is that little things matter. How you practice matter. How you develop your depth chart matters. There’s so little room for error that success demands perfection, or somewhere close.
In that sense, Elko’s experience at Duke should translate well to the new tools and resources at his disposal. Even if the program doesn’t land recruiting classes as highly ranked as those Fisher brought on campus, the combination of the Aggies’ recruiting base and a deeper commitment to the details of winning football make this an extremely intriguing fit.
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Setting realistic expectations
Athletics director Ross Bjork has already said that A&M is not an eight-win job and that the school will pay a coach a national-championship salary.
In return, of course, the Aggies will expect a national championship.
Elko’s six-year deal has a base payment of $7 million per season with major incentives: $1 million for making the playoff, $1.5 million for reaching the quarterfinals of the 12-team playoff or winning the SEC championship, $2 million for reaching the playoff semifinals, $2.5 million for reaching the championship game and $3.5 million for winning the national championship.
Good luck with all that.
It’s not just that getting this program from the current standard of eight wins to the top of the Bowl Subdivision is unrealistic given the number of teams in the Aggies’ way. There’s also history to consider: A&M has just one double-digit win season since 1998, never finished higher than second in the SEC West since joining the conference in 2012 and hasn’t won a national title since 1939.
Realistically, Elko should be expected to reach the eight-win threshold from the start. He should be expected to lead a team that competes with the best of the best in the SEC, doesn’t flop in marquee games, avoids letdowns against inferior competition and, of course, beats old-and-new conference rival Texas more often than not.
But all the championship-or-bust chatter is nonsense that will only serve to diminish any achievements by the new staff and create an environment unconducive to sustainable, long-term success.
What will Mike Elko want from the offense?
His best hire at Duke was offensive coordinator Kevin Johns, an experienced play-caller who did his best work this past season with a group depleted by several costly injuries, most notably to starting quarterback Riley Leonard.
Johns has extensive experience, including previous stints as a Power Five coordinator at Indiana and Texas Tech. He’s an option to follow Elko to A&M.
But the checkbook is open. That Elko will be able to spend millions on his hires makes you wonder: Will he stick with continuity and bring along most of his offensive assistants with the Blue Devils or opt to strike out in a new direction?
If he does put this job on the open market, A&M will be in the mix for every high-profile offensive coordinator looking to add a few zeroes to his bank account under the freedom typically afforded by working under a defense-first head coach.
One huge key: Keeping the roster as intact as possible
The program’s player development was lousy and player accountability even worse under Fisher, making it easy to pinpoint these failures as two of the biggest keys behind his bellyflopped tenure.
But to be clear: A&M does not have a talent issue.
There is no shortage of elite, game-changing personnel on the Aggies’ roster. According to the team-talent calculator from 247Sports.com, A&M has the fourth-most talent of any program in the FBS, trailing only Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State. (Those three are currently 34-2.)
Keeping this talent on campus will go a long way toward determining whether or not Elko can hit the ground running.
In this case, that Elko was on campus as recently as 2021 and is a known commodity to a big chunk of the roster − and even helped recruit a good number of returnees − should limit the exodus of talent and give him a very strong roster at his disposal next season.