Ross Bjork addresses Mark Stoops pursuit at Texas A&M, details steps of 'search process'

As Texas A&M worked to replace Jimbo Fisher, word got out the university was pursuing Kentucky’s Mark Stoops to take over as the Aggies’ head coach. Things changed quickly, though, as Ross Bjork and Texas A&M ultimately opted to hire Mike Elko while Stoops stayed in Lexington.

News of Texas A&M’s interest in Stoops was an interesting turn in the search to replace Fisher. There were a few twists and turns through the process before he announced he was staying at Kentucky. However, Bjork said coaching searches aren’t as easy as people might think.

While he pointed out Stoops was a candidate, Bjork — who’s preparing to take over as Ohio State’s athletic director over the summer — made it clear “communication” is important when finding a new head coach.

“Here’s what people, they don’t really realize about the process. The athletic director and the team — whatever that may look like — we run a search process,” Bjork said. “We make recommendations to the President. ‘I would like to hire this person,’ or, ‘I think this is the No. 1 candidate.’ That’s how it works on every institution. No athletic director has the full autonomy to say, ‘I’m absolutely going to hire this person and no one else is involved.’ That’s where it goes back to alignment, that’s where it goes back to process and communication.

“So how that name got out there — of course, he was a candidate. But we didn’t hire him. We hired Mike Elko, and Mike Elko is a great coach, and we’re gonna meet them in the playoffs because he’s going to build it. So at the end of the day, who did you hire and how did you get there? That’s what matters the most. So searches in today’s world are really, really probably unrealistic in terms of because of social media, because of plane tracking, because of whatever. And so that’s what you have to do is just go through a process and pick the right person, and that’s what we did.”

Ross Bjork’s comments Wednesday were similar to the ones he made when he introduced Elko as Texas A&M head coach in late November. He made it clear there were a few different pieces to the search, and the goal was to quite simply get it right.

“Well, look, here’s the thing. Over the last two weeks, when we engage with up to 30 different coaches at varying different levels? Some were in person, some were Zoom, some were calls, some were through third parties, etc.? There’s going to be a lot of moving parts,” Bjork explained. “As President Welsh said, one of the things he learned going through this — it ain’t over ’til it’s over. We wanted to make sure we engaged with our final group of candidates as long as possible.”