From the other sideline: What Mike Elko said after Texas A&M beat Florida

At times, his offense was clicking. At times, his defense was suffocating. When one side of the ball was down, the other side picked it up. For Texas A&M coach Mike Elko, that was key to the No. 5 Aggies in their 34-17 win over Florida at Kyle Field on Saturday night.

 “What I told the guys in the locker room was this: I thought that was as complete a team complementary win as we’ve had from the standpoint of we didn’t really start particularly well on defense,” Elko said. “They go right down the field offensively. We answer. We start really hot, right offensively, get ourselves a lead, which allows the defense to kind of settle in. They make some adjustments.

Our offense starts sputtering a little bit. Defense steps up and starts making a bunch of plays. I challenged the guys at halftime on defense to go out and get us two turnovers. I said, two turnovers will win us the game in the second half. And we were able to go out there and cause two fumbles and recover them both. I think that’s the next step for us on defense, and that was huge I thought.”

The game was closer than the final score indicated. The Aggies (6-0 overall, 3-0 in the SEC) led just 24-17 entering the fourth quarter. Florida (2-4, 1-2) had multiple possessions in the second half with a chance to tie it but came up empty every time. Not helping the Gators’ cause was that UF was 1 of 10 on third down.

When it was over, one thing was clear: Texas A&M had made far more plays than Florida when it counted most.

“I was just really proud of our offense in terms of how we grinded through,” Mike Elko said. “That’s a really good defense. It’s not easy to move the ball on them, and we just kept pounding. And then for us to be able to run the ball effectively the way we did to milk the clock in the fourth quarter and really suck the air out of the game, that’s not easy to do in this conference. So it’s a great win. It’s a great win against a really quality opponent. I think this win will age well as the year goes on.”

Here’s .what else Elko had to say after the game:

On his defense improving after UF scored two early touchdowns

““Yeah, they were doing a little bit more in the RPO game maybe than we had anticipated. We were able to tweak some things with our looks and then how we were presenting some different things. I think that helped us.

I think the first drive, we just didn’t execute particularly well. We really got on our heels, didn’t handle things really well. The second drive, they made a lot of plays. They got in some one-on-one situations and made some really good throws and catches. And so we had to try to find some ways to change and alter the windows a little bit in the RPO game. I think we were able to do that.”

Mike Elko on losing standout running back  Le’Veon Moss to injury in the first half

 “It is what it is. I love Le’Veon. Hopefully he’s okay, but we’ve got to be able to play. And that’s SEC football. This team has not — have they given up 34 points to anybody? I don’t think so, right? That’s what I thought. It’s hard to say that scoring the most points that that defense has allowed is a rough night.”

On the Aggies having only 3 penalties for 30 yards

“Yeah, obviously it’s been a work in progress. It’s going to continue to be a work in progress. It certainly helps us when we don’t go backwards. It makes the game easier to play for sure. I thought we did a good job tonight. We’ve got to continue to do it that way.”

On if he still thinks UF is the best team the Aggies will play this season

“Yes. It’s a really, really talented football team. That’s a really talented football team. I don’t know what they did to the scheduling gods to draw the schedule that they did. I said that to Coach [Billy] Napier pregame. They play a gauntlet of a schedule. It’s four straight top-ten teams that they’ve played, three of them on the road. That’s hard. It’s really hard.

I think that is a really talented team. I told you guys I thought DJ [Lagway] was playing really well. That certainly showed tonight until we were able to kind of start affecting them with the rush. They’re a good football team. We’re a good football team. They’re a good football team. It was a really good SEC football game.”

Mike Elko on his offense’s fast start Saturday

“Yeah. I mean, obviously, we hit the big, explosive play. That was really good. On the first play of the game, that’s a good start. I thought Marcel [Reed] was in a really good rhythm delivering the ball really well. I thought we were able to kind of get the ball to the guys we wanted to get the ball to.

And then they made some adjustments, and they started really putting a lot of brackets on KC [Concepcion] and Mario [Craver] and made it challenging to get those guys the ball. I think that’s maybe kind of some of the stallouts came from.

There were some boxes where we hoped we could run the ball a little bit better, and we weren’t able to get it going the way we wanted to. And that’s because their D-line is good. But we just kept grinding and kept grinding away to go get a win.”