Mike Elko entered the A&M job with limited time to assemble a staff. On top of that, he had the tough task of managing the current roster, high school recruiting and hitting the transfer portal.
Given the circumstances, I’d give Elko a B+ grade overall mainly because, even though he has a lot on his plate, I believe he’s been a tad bit slow filling out important coaching positions. Granted, he did mention once bowl season is over the staff will shape up quickly. Outside of that, he’s been doing a bang-up job on the recruiting trail, especially rebuilding the relationship with the THSCA in a short period of time.
Like with most coaching changes, many football players will rightfully start looking for other places to continue their college careers with a staff they might have built a prior relationship with. Coach Elko addressed one of the coaching positions that has yet to be filled on his staff and if it’s affecting the recruiting.
“I don’t think there has been any problem in selling the defense. I think finding a linebackers coach, which is where the coordinator will come from, has been more of a challenge.”
He also mentioned that a hire to fill the vacant defensive coordinator spot should come within 24-48 hours. Another topic of interest was the status of signing high school recruits who might have been on the fence or just having the time to reach out to as many recruits as he liked.
“The group that we put together is really about quality and not quantity….. When you’re a new coach, you can do a lot of things in your first 18 days that can set your program back a lot.”
“At some point, we’re going to have to come up with some kind of governance that has some sort of access to roster management that isn’t open moves every single day from the end of the season into January.”
Coach Elko hit on several other topics that you can check out from the Press conference below:
The Elko era is almost in full swing, and the future looks bright as the team starts to take shape.
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