Everything Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said after beating Notre Dame football

Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko held court in front of reporters for 11 minutes following his Aggies 41-40 victory over Notre Dame. Here’s everything Elko said in his postgame press conference.

Opening statement

“Obviously hats off to Notre Dame. That was an unbelievable college football game. Two heavyweight teams throwing punches back and forth at each other from start to finish, all the way down to the wire. I couldn’t be more proud of our guys. I don’t know that that thing went to script in any way, shape or form to how you would script a win on the road. We just battled. We battled through a blocked punt. We battled through some procedure penalties. We battled through some coverage busts that created some open explosives for them. And we just kept fighting and we just kept fighting and we kept fighting and ultimately made the play we needed to make to win the football game on the road. And so, hopefully you guys won’t have to ask me any more questions about whether or not Marcel can throw. That’s what I really hope comes out of this win.”

On what was going through his mind when Notre Dame called a timeout before fourth and goal at the end of the game

“We had a similar play call before the timeout. We changed the formation presentation of it and ran a very similar play to what we were going to call before the timeout. We wanted to honestly have something where Nate was running on the side because we kind of thought it was gonna be really hard to get it to Mario or KC. They had been kind of bracketing them the two previous plays. We felt like that would give us an option on the sideline if we needed it. And we did. Marcel gave him a ball that he can go up and catch and he made a heck of a play.”

On the resiliency of Texas A&M to knock off Notre Dame

“I think when you want to become a championship-level program, we’re not there yet, we have a lot of work to do to become that. There’s going to be moments like this though that are going to help springboard it, right? Moments where your guys just find a way to compete and battle through everything that’s happening in a game and find a way to come out victorious.

“It’s been well-documented how long it’s been since this program has gone on the road and beat a really good team. For us to do that on the road, in South Bend, at night, against a team that was obviously desperate to save their season tonight, I think it’s the step that we had to take to move forward. That’s what we did, we took one step forward tonight. Now we’ve got to rest and we’ve got to get through the bye week. We’ve got to get a lot better as we head into SEC play with all of our goals in front of us.”

On what taking the next step looked like for the Aggies in such a crazy game

“I think sometimes it has to happen that way. Sometimes it’s going to be ugly. Sometimes it’s going to be a game like that where, defensively, maybe we’re not playing as great as we wanted to. And special teams, we’re not playing as great as we want to. And the offense just goes out and carries the show for a while. And the defense makes a couple stops to get us back in it and give us a rhythm. I think that’s the door that we had to kick down. I don’t think that we were just going to magically become a team that was going to go and everything was going to go smooth. We had to kick this door down. And we did that tonight.”

On the game played by Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed, particularly on the last drive

“I mean, it’s the third time in a row. If you now go through this, that’s Auburn, that’s the bowl game and that’s this game. It’s the third time in a row that he led us on a game-winning drive. I said that all offseason, that that was a big piece of it. For him in those moments he has been really good. It got overshadowed last year, obviously, because we lost those two games. But he has been really good in those moments. And so we had a lot of confidence in him tonight.”

On an ‘injury update’ on the chair he threw during the game

“I don’t know what happened to the chair. Maybe it probably didn’t survive, would be my guess, why you’re asking.”

On how Reed stays poised

“I just think it’s who he is. I think he put in the work that he needed to put in this offseason to feel really confident. He feels really confident because the game has slowed down a little bit. And again, there’s still a lot we’ve got to fix. But I think the game has slowed down a little bit. Now he is very confident in where he’s going with the football, even down to that last play. You know that’s a play that we rep every week. It’s a play that we have not run yet this year. It’s a play for that moment. And he knew 1, 2, bang, and those are the things that you see him do that we just didn’t get last year consistently. That was the step we kept talking about this offseason that we felt like he had made. Obviously, in this environment tonight, he really showed it.”

On where he gets his confidence in Reed from and why he thinks the ‘Reed can’t throw’ discourse needs to stop

“Just being around him every day. That narrative was never right. That narrative was one of the most unfair narratives that had ever been created. The kid was a top-10 returning QBR kid. He completed over 60 percent of his passes. His touchdown to interception rate was elite. But for some reason because he came in the LSU game and that wasn’t what everyone saw, the story just became he can’t throw because we didn’t throw him because we didn’t need to. It was one of the more unfair stories that was ever written.

“And is he perfect throwing the ball? No. He still missed a couple throws I’m sure he wishes he had back. And that’s still a continued development for a young quarterback. But I just think he is a really, really talented player and I’m glad we have him.”

On the Bryce Anderson injury and the circumstances surrounding it

“Still praying for Bryce. I think at this point, all signs are positive. We haven’t done every diagnostic testing, but so far every test that we’ve run through has come back positive. We’ll continue to pray that comes to a positive resolution.

“I just told them what any coach would tell them. Your brother just went down. You need to step up and you need to win this for him. In some degree, maybe that galvanized us.”

On getting Mario Craver and KC Concepcion loose vs. the Notre Dame defense

“The catch KC made before the long one, he went really high near their sideline early in the game and came down with a ball that was like, that was one of the more impressive catches of the evening. And then he went up and made the challenge catch on the deep throw. I think those two plays allowed Marcel to take a breath and kind of regroup.”

On calling timeout early in the game before a Notre Dame third and 1

“Because we had 10 guys on the field. We didn’t think we’d be able to stop them with 10, so we wanted to bang a timeout and get that 11th guy out there. I thought that was a critical factor in that play. That was not a stupid question. That was actually a good question. We got jobbled up with the substitution and so we saw it and before they snapped it we wanted to get that squared away.”

On Texas A&M settling in after a poor start

“I just think we kept making plays. I don’t know that we ever felt that we weren’t playing well on offense. You had the special teams block. They hit a couple runs. We got the run game situated, then they hit the pass down the sideline. It just seemed like the offense was in rhythm and the defense and special teams had to figure it out. I don’t feel like there was ever a lack of confidence. The offensive guys were up and down the sideline all game, ‘We got you. We got you. Keep going. We got you. We’re going to win this game.’ I thought that was a really good sign of where we were mentally as we were going through it.”

On Texas A&M having not beaten a ranked team on the road since 2014

“I think it shows us we can do it. That’s a hurdle. You have to get over that hurdle so that when you get into the fourth quarter on the road in a close game in a tough environment, you have to believe that you can win until you actually come away with that. These kids, the ones who have been a part of Texas A&M football, you go back to ’23 at Tennessee, at Ole Miss. You go back to last year, at Auburn. They’ve suffered a lot down the stretch. And for them to finally break through I think will give them confidence moving forward. And then hopefully what they’ll take from the game is if they find a way to execute better, they can be something really special.”

On Texas A&M getting open against the Notre Dame secondary

“We felt like we would win. We felt like we would win outside. We went into the game believing we would win outside. And I think we did.”

On what the win means for him personally

“I’m just really happy for my guys. I don’t think about myself at all, really, to be honest with you. I think about our guys. I think about everything they put into this thing. I think about how much they put into this game. For them to be victorious tonight and get to enjoy that and enjoy moving this program in the right direction, for everything they do, I think that’s just awesome.”

On the pregame scuffle and a ‘revenge factor’ vs. Notre Dame

“I don’t think so. It was an interesting week. The narratives. The storylines. It was an interesting week. I don’t think pregame was anything different from how the week was. And, truthfully, that’s how it should have been. Until we get on this stage and win, that should be the narrative.

“I just talked to the guys all week. Talked to them the last 24 hours. If you want to earn respect in this game, you got an opportunity to go do it. And ultimately, you would have to do it. And I think they did that a little bit tonight.”