Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko on South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers: 'He absolutely lit us up last year'

This Saturday, South Carolina football (3-6; 1-6) will take on the No. 3 Texas A&M Aggies (9-0; 6-0). The game will be in College Station at Kyle Field at noon (Eastern). ESPN will handle the broadcast, while the ESPN app handles the streaming.

Many are chalking this game up as a straightforward victory for the home team. One who is not is A&M head coach Mike Elko.

Elko spoke with the media on Monday, and he gave more than just the typical “coach-speak” answers when discussing the Gamecocks, especially quarterback LaNorris Sellers.

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Last year, South Carolina won the Battle for the Bonham Trophy in relatively lopsided fashion. The Gamecocks whipped the No. 10 Aggies, 44-20.

Sellers went off in the game, registering 350 yards of offense and three touchdowns. He also shook off multiple sacks, ran over a handful of Aggie tackle attempts, and made a few perfect passes.

For his efforts, Sellers picked up several National Player of the Week honors.

Because of that performance, Elko highlighted Sellers on Monday, despite the 2025 season not going the way Sellers or the Gamecocks have wanted. “I see the same big, physical, athletic kid that ran all over us and threw all over us last year,” he said. “I see the same kid, and so our kids better see the same kid, because he absolutely lit us up last year.”

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Though the spread wasn’t quite as big last season, Texas A&M entered the 2024 game as the favorite, as well. South Carolina outperformed those expectations by nearly 30 points. That has Elko wary about the chances of a talented group of Gamecocks putting it all together on Saturday.

“It’s the same team that beat us by 25 points–or whatever it was last year–and really embarrassed us up and down the field,” he remembered. South Carolina rode their star quarterback to a dominant second half in which they outscored Texas A&M, 24-0.

At the time of this writing, Elko’s group holds a 19.5-point advantage in the betting odds from BetMGM.

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