Elko looking for consistency vs. Samford

Last Saturday was an up and down and up experience for Texas A&M coach Mike Elko.

First, he signed a new contract that significantly increases his salary. Then he saw his Aggie football team play terribly in the first half, going to the locker room trailing South Carolina 30-3. The Aggies came back out and blew the Gamecocks out of the water, becoming the first SEC team since at least 1992 to rally from a 27-point deficit in a conference game to win.

“From the turnover (Marcel Reed’s fumble that was returned for a touchdown) to the half was probably the worst football we’ve played in my tenure here, going all the way back probably as a defensive coordinator too,” Elko said at his weekly press conference. “I think we were panicking. I think we were pressing. I think we were trying so hard to make things right that we just were making things worse.”

Having 20 minutes to calm down proved to be sufficient for the Aggies, as Texas A&M outscored South Carolina 28-0 in a dominant second half to win 31-30.

“We went into halftime, and I told the guys I was extremely proud of the locker room composure. There was a lot of positive talk. There was a lot of talk about what we needed to do. There wasn’t a lot of arguing, there wasn’t a lot of pointing fingers. There was just a sense of, ‘We’ve got to fix this,'”, Elko said. “That was the first sign that there was a chance that we could come out and do something.”

They definitely did something, outgaining South Carolina 371-76 in the second half and scoring touchdowns on four straight possessions, all of which were 70 yards or longer. Their final drive, a 99-yard march that took four minutes, 13 seconds, ended with an EJ Smith 4-yard touchdown run that gave Texas A&M a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

“Obviously (we) came out in the second half and made a lot of football plays and flipped the script on the game and got the crowd behind us. Once that starts happening in Kyle Field, anything can happen,” Elko said.

The first half probably felt longer than the negotiations on Elko’s extension, which now has him under contract until 2031. When he returned to Texas A&M two years ago, Elko detailed his vision on how to make the football program successful. With the head football coach, athletic director and university officials of like mind on how to move forward, hashing out a new deal didn’t take long.

“If you believe in this program and you believe in what we’re doing, this is what we believe that belief should look like. And I think everybody just kind of agreed,” Elko said. “I don’t think there was much back and forth. Once we knew the university and the athletic department were willing to commit to the program the way they were, we were never going anywhere.”

Elko said that the contract negotiations were never going to be hung up by things he personally wanted.

“It was never going to get stuck on what I wanted,” he said. “It was the commitment to the program, to the staff, to the support staff, to the auxiliary staff, to the players, to making sure that we could run this program in a way that I believe will allow us to continue to chase championships year in and year out.”

One thing that Elko pushed for was an increased salary pool for his assistants and a bonus structure similar to the one he received when he signed his initial contract.

“It’s critical. It’s absolutely critical (to treat the assistants well),” he said. “One of the biggest things that we were able to get done was a bonus structure for the assistants that kind of married something similar to the bonus structure that I had. I thought one of the things that was not right was the bonus structure that I was going to receive had we qualified for the playoffs that was not on par with what the assistants…certainly I’m no more valuable to this thing than they are.”

Now that he and his staff have been taken care of, Elko now has to get his team to focus on its last home game of the season, this Saturday against Samford (1-10). While the struggling FCS team may not put up much of a fight against the team ranked third in the College Football Playoff poll, Elko sees plenty of opportunity for the Aggies.

“Now we turn our attention ahead to Samford and an opportunity for us to get back to playing football at our standard. We talk a lot about playing to our standard, regardless of opponent. I told the guys this this morning. It’s not something we’ve been good enough at,” he said. “So this is an opportunity for us to take a maturity step and go out there and play the game at the level that we’re capable of playing it regardless of who we’re playing. That’s gonna matter a lot, for me, in terms of how we approach this one.”

With the Samford game presenting a chance to go undefeated at home as well as Senior Day, Elko said his team should have plenty of motivation.

“With as close as we came on Saturday to letting this all go in another direction, we understand how important it is to come out of that locker room every single Saturday with the right frame of mind to compete and play,” he said. “Then I think the message is simple: you’re going to remember the last game you play in Kyle Field forever. And this is the last game we’re guaranteed to play in Kyle Field. So let’s go out and do it the right way and let’s make sure it reflects who we are as a program and all the work that we’ve put in this thing to be successful.”