How Mike Elko built Texas A&M into a contender

Mike Elko always struck me as a very reasonable head coaching hire for Texas A&M. I even wondered if being forced into such a stable but non-exciting hire might have saved the Aggies from their own poor judgment. Sometimes the right choice isn’t the splashy one.

There were two big hires by Elko after accepting the job at A&M that each suggested the Aggies may have quietly hit a home run. Both came at staff positions that are becoming increasingly more essential to success in modern college football than the “rainmaker” assistant recruiting hires of yesteryear.

First, Elko took advantage of the availability of former LSU strength coach Tommy Moffit, who was available because Brian Kelly fired him upon taking over for Ed Orgeron. Moffit had originally been brought in by Nick Saban and was retained by each of the next two subsequent regimes, winning national championships with each, before getting the boot from Kelly. Oops.

Second, Elko officially brought in his Duke personnel man, Derek Miller, as the general manager. Those two moves were the canary in the coal mine which portended a big year two after the mixed results of Elko’s year one. Player development and smart player acquisition have Texas A&M undefeated heading into Austin and in position to be a real challenger to Texas for the foreseeable future. Let’s examine how it all materialized for 2025.

Opening a space force portal

If you’re not familiar with the “space force” concept, I have a general theory of college football roster evaluation which says there are five key positions at which elite athleticism and physical traits really matter. Those positions are called the “space force” positions because most of them involve a lot of 1-on-1 matchups with a skilled counterpart on the other side of the ball, in space, with high stakes for a game’s outcome. Those four are outside receiver, left tackle, Edge, and cornerback. The fifth position is defensive tackle, which doesn’t operate in space but is generally the most important position for a college defense and requires elite physical traits.

The 2025 Aggies have built up a formidable space force and done so almost entirely with smart evaluations of available athletes in the transfer portal. Let’s take a quick tour.

Position	Player	Origin	Stats
Left tackle	Trey Zuhn	4-star recruit from CO	2.9% sack rate
Outside receiver	KC Concepcion	NC State transfer	52 catches, 829 yards, nine TDs
Edge	Cashius Howell	Bowling Green transfer	13 TFL, 11.5 sacks, 6 PBU
Cornerback	Will Lee	Kansas State transfer	1 INT, 6 PBU
D-tackle	Tyler Onyedim	Iowa State transfer	41 tackles, 5.5 TFL, 1.5 sacks

Trey Zuhn is the only player of the five who didn’t portal in to Texas A&M under the new regime and it so happens he often splits time at left tackle with former blue chip recruit Reuben Fatheree. Everyone else came through the portal from inauspicious origins, many of them from the Midwest. Can any good athletes come from there? Evidently so.

The Aggies are where they are because of smart evaluations of players from lower levels of play who have come in and provided game-changing skill and athleticism at some of the most important positions on the field. This list doesn’t even include cornerback Dezz Ricks, whom they snatched up from Alabama when Nick Saban retired, or slot receiver Mario Craver who was poached from Mississippi State. Texas A&M has used the portal as well as any program in college football the last two years.

Development of the signal-callers

The major reason the Aggies were only 8-5 in year one with Elko was a lack of expertise and veteran knowhow at the “signal-caller” positions of quarterback and safety. At the literal quarterback position, A&M had to pivot from Conner Weigman to Marcel Reed during the season. The latter offered some playmaking with his outstanding athleticism, but also a lot of mistakes and some bumbling of various opportunities.

Offensive coordinator Collin Klein, another terrific early hire by Elko, struggled to scheme A&M’s limited wide receivers open on his play designs and when he did Reed struggled to find them on time. By the time the Aggies had reached Texas on the schedule, running back Le’Veon Moss was out with injury and everything rode on Reed’s ability to inexpertly hero-ball the Aggies to offense. The elite Longhorn defense predictably squashed those efforts.

This year Reed knows where and when to find his receivers on shot plays, how to use his eyes to keep defenders from sitting on his primary read, and also how to execute gun-option and RPO schemes. His legs are now offering value-add to the Aggie offense rather than carrying it.

The other problem for the 2024 Aggies were the safety and linebacker positions, where the team received very little impact while relying on underclassmen like Taurean York, Dalton Brooks, and Marcus Ratcliffe who are now upperclassmen. Those three have now been joined by junior Daymion Sanford in the middle and while there is still work to be done, especially in generating turnovers, they at least now know what they’re doing in this defense.

This defense could easily hit another level next year when that quad returns as seniors, but in the meantime they now know how to execute Elko’s quarters coverages and consequently some of Elko’s nastier blitz packages that have the team no. 1 in the nation in third down conversion defense. The nastiest blitz they have has the strong side playing quarters coverage to half the field while bringing both the backer and the safety from the other side of the field to overload a protection scheme. Kyle Flood is going to want to be on the lookout for that one.

The massive increase in A&M’s order and cohesion as an offense and defense is a testament to an improved offseason program. They’re also bigger and stronger in the trenches thanks to Moffit. Miller has overseen expert evaluations of the portal and Elko and his staff effectively taught the system to young talents on the roster. We’ll see Friday if the Aggies’ superior offseason will be enough to actually win at Texas.