Texas A&M University made it official on Monday, after reports on Saturday linked them to Kentucky’s Mark Stoops, and after clouds of doubt hovered about Duke’s Mike Elko for about 26-32 hours Saturday through Sunday.
A&M Athletic Director Ross Bjork announced the hire of Elko as new head football coach on Monday, ESPN confirmed (Texas A&M hires Mike Elko to replace Jimbo Fisher – ESPN).
“Coach Mike Elko is one of the best leaders and coaches in college football and has had high-level success at each stop of his career,” Bjork said. “He is known amongst coaching circles as one of the best defensive minds in the country and has shown his ability to lead and turn around a program as a Power 5 head coach.”
Many of us thought we had an announcement Saturday evening (Reports say Mark Stoops is A&M’s target, but not official | The Football Beat), as several outlets reported it was Stoops (“Dude, it’s Stoops” became a popular saying during the Alabama coaching search that eventually landed Nick Saban at Alabama; it was a reference at the time to then-Oklahoma coach BOB Stoops, Mark Stoops’ brother).
That turned out to be a false alarm – I think – and it’s hardly the first time the media bit on what I believe was a ploy by an agent to get his client a pay raise when there was never any intent whatsoever for the client to leave his current position, in Stoops’ case, the University of Kentucky.
At any rate, Elko, once the defensive coordinator at A&M, returns to College Station as its head coach and do head-to-head recruiting battles with Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, LSU coach Bryan Kelly, Saban and all the rest in the Southeastern Conference, and that’s jumping in the deep end of the pool from the waters of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and the likes of Boston College, Syracuse, and North Carolina State, and only having to face two or three big-name opponents a year (Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina and Miami).
Elko went from being DC at A&M to head coach of the Blue Devils in 2022, has spent just two seasons there, and is 16-9, including an upset of Clemson this year.
A&M, of course, fired Jimbo Fisher on Sunday, Nov. 15 (they were 6-4 at the time) and paid him $76 million to go away. FIsher won a national title at Florida State in 2013.
