For six years, Southeastern Conference reporters were accustomed to Texas A&M’s football coach creating headlines during media days.
There were not-so-humble brags. Colorful quips about football and non-football topics alike. And occasional verbal grenades nonchalantly tossed toward Nick Saban.
On Thursday, though, in the last of four SEC Media Days in the Omni Hotel in Dallas, new Aggies coach Mike Elko strode to the podium in his gray suit, maroon tie and professorial glasses and in 30 minutes of answering questions raised nary an eyebrow.
“I’m proud of how quiet our offseason has been,” he said. “I’m proud of how quickly our players have adapted to a new culture and a new way of attacking football.”
In appearance and lack of pretension, the 46-year-old Elko evidently is the anti-Jimbo Fisher, not that the new understated culture in Aggieland is purposely meant to be an indictment of Fisher, who was fired last November despite A&M owing him a college-record $76 million buyout.
Upon becoming the 30th head coach in A&M history, Elko stated in his introductory news conference that it was time for the Aggies to stop talking about what they’re capable of achieving and instead get to work.
Quietly. No Instagram posts of offseason workouts.
“I think when it’s not football time, we should be working,” Elko said Thursday. “That’s what gets you, ultimately, the results you want to have in the fall. I’m just proud that we’ve been able to do that so quickly in College Station.”
Fisher went 45-25 at A&M and the Aggies were 12-13 the past two seasons, despite Fisher and his staff consistently landing highly ranked recruiting classes, including No. 1 in the nation in 2022.
As A&M’s defensive coordinator from 2018 to 2021, when the team went 34-14 and went to four bowl games, Elko played a major role in the Aggies’ best Fisher seasons.
Now, though, this has all the earmarks of an Aggie rebuild, with 41 new scholarship players and a near-50% roster turnover — entering a season in which traditional rival Texas, and Oklahoma have joined the SEC.
Aggies fans have long circled the dates of two games in particular, both of which will be played at Kyle Field — the Aug. 31 season opener against Notre Dame; and the Nov. 30 regular-season finale against Texas, marking the schools’ 119th meeting but first since 2011.
For Aggies sophomore linebacker Taurean York, the return of the A&M-UT rivalry is “personal.” Even though he grew up 70 miles from Austin, in Temple, he said the Longhorns didn’t recruit him. He said he has no relationship with any Texas players.
“I don’t talk to anybody from Texas because it’s that personal to me,” he said.
Offensive lineman Trey Zuhn III grew up in Colorado, but his parents and grandmother are Aggies and his grandfather was an A&M professor. Trey recently purchased a Longhorn logo and hung it upside-down next to his bed in his College Station apartment.
“Don’t let a referee in there,” Zuhn joked, although SEC referees won’t penalize players for using the “Horns down” gesture unless they deem it to be done in an offensive manner.
“A lot of players in the locker room don’t know the full extent [of the rivalry],” Zuhn said. “Well, they didn’t, but myself and the fans have been getting everyone on the same page, like, ‘Hey, this is a big deal. We’re bringing this thing back.’ "
The season opener brings not only Notre Dame, but ESPN’s GameDay to College Station. Elko was the Irish’s defensive coordinator in 2017, then was lured to Fisher’s A&M staff — before earning his first head coaching job, at Duke, where he went 16-9 in two seasons.
Most current A&M players weren’t part of the program when Elko was the school’s defensive coordinator, but quite a few were recruited by him to play at either A&M or Duke.
York said the transformation of A&M’s locker room culture during the past seven months has been dramatic.
“Accountability. Discipline,” he said. “Everybody’s where they’re supposed to be at, on time. Doing the little things right. You know, the little things matter and ultimately show up in the fourth quarter.”
It’s not so much that the program was too “noisy,” York said, but that there were clashing agendas.
“I don’t know if we all wanted the same thing at the end of the day,” he said. “But things happen for a reason and we’re here with Coach Elko. “I’m excited to have him as my coach.”
Elko reportedly wasn’t A&M’s first choice to succeed Fisher. Initial reports were that Kentucky’s Mark Stoops was all but headed to College Station until backlash from Aggie fans.
Elko, conversely, has connections throughout Aggieland. He was part of A&M’s best home game moments of the Fisher era, including the 74-72 seven-overtime win over LSU in 2018; and the 41-38 victory over No. 1 Alabama in 2021.
The difference is that he coached those games and all others for A&M from the press box.
“To see those from above was amazing,” he said. “I can’t imagine what that atmosphere actually feels like at ground level, so I’m excited to lead our team down the tunnel for the first time against Notre Dame and hear Aggieland erupt live and in person.
“That’s going to be a really special feeling.”
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