COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Mike Elko enters his second season as head coach at Texas A&M with his program hoping to make the jump into SEC title contention. The Aggies started 7-1 last year with their lone loss coming in the opener to a Notre Dame squad that eventually played for the national championship. Elko’s crew limped to the finish line however, losing their last four to Power Four competition, including its bowl game to USC. 

Optimism was palpable in our trip to College Station for a sit down with Elko as we prepare the 2025 edition of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football summer magazine. The Aggies return Marcel Reed at quarterback, a stable of proven running backs, and their top seven offensive linemen from an eight-win squad. Defensively, Elko believes Year 2 in the system will help the Wrecking Crew eliminate big plays. 

The road to a 10-win season and a spot in the College Football Playoff is bumpier in 2025, at least on paper. Texas A&M must travel to Notre Dame in Week 3 and to LSU, Missouri, and Texas in SEC play. The home schedule includes Auburn, Florida, and South Carolina. Here is Elko on the future of spring games, the general manager position, and the importance of making a jump in Year 2. 

Question: What do you think the future of spring football is? What do you want it to look like? 

Elko: I like what it is and I’m not really interested in changing it. Obviously, we’ll adapt as the need arises but I think we’re developmental by nature. The more opportunities we get to develop our players, the better that is for us. We’re fortunate here at Texas A&M that we don’t have roster number issues, so we’re holding really competitive practices every day. If you start playing a spring game against an opponent, all of a sudden you have to game plan for it and prep for it. If it’s a game where they’re keeping score, your fan base is going to care about it, which means you need to win it. Nobody in college football just functions in a world where we’re just going to roll the ball out and go play and not make it a big deal who wins and loses. It just doesn’t work like that. 

Q: What do you think the future of the general manager position is in college football? Any thoughts on Andrew Luck being able to fire the head coach?  

Elko: I think it is very interesting. I think they should call Andrew Luck the athletic director of football, right? That appears the role that he’s taking. That role has always existed, he’s just doing it with a strictly football mindset. We have a general manager. We were one of the first to get a general manager when we were at Duke. I think having somebody running recruiting every day for 365 days a year matters. I think a lot of NFL coaches would tell you, they like working hand in hand with their general manager. They don't like sitting in a situation where the general manager makes all the decisions. There’s always some type of joint effort that needs to go into that. I’m not sure that the general manager in college can start firing coaches. I think all of us are trying to find ways to supplement what the organization needs. For us, a lot of it is scouting evaluation, organization of visits, organization of what’s happening, and then management of those types of things for this team specifically. 

Q: What were some of the things you want this team to improve on from Year 1 to Year 2? 

Elko: I think we have to make the natural Year 1 to Year 2 jump. I think that’s a critical component to what has to happen around here. I don’t think anybody truly appreciates how challenging it is in Year 1 to get everything up and running at the level you want it. Obviously, we had some highs and some lows last fall, but progress in your program is measured from year to year. Specifically, a lot of emphasis on improving the downfield passing game on offense. That’s something we want to get better at. And then, I just think consistency on defense to eliminate explosive plays. We gave up way too many explosive plays last year. It is funny because play in and play out, it was one of the best defenses that I’ve had at Texas A&M from an efficiency standpoint. But from a statistical standpoint, it was one of the worst. The problem was the amount of explosive plays we gave up. 

Q: The players talk about improved culture in Year 1 under you. How do you go about defining culture in this program? 

Elko: To me, culture is a unified vision. Everybody in the organization understanding the vision and how we’re getting there. A lot of it comes down to clear messaging. With the portal, culture changes every year and that’s probably why we’re seeing a little bit more peak and valley across the country from teams at times. That amount of turnover creates a hit or miss situation. I think you have to be a lot more intentional now about how you build it and to make sure everybody’s marching in the same direction. 

Q: Great start to the season, not so great finish. What do you attribute the difference to? 

Elko: The reality is, we were probably somewhere in the middle and that’s where we finished. It sucks, how we got there to some degree, but we put ourselves in position to get on some big stages at the end and we just didn’t handle them well or play our best football. There’s some growth and some learning that comes from that, and obviously injuries played a role. It was the first time these kids have been in a situation where they were playing in those types of meaningful games and that requires a bit of a learning curve. 

Q: How big of a jump can Marcel Reed take with a full offseason as QB1 and a second year in the same offensive system? 

Elko: I think the comfortability in the scheme and the plays that we’re doing will help him tremendously. When we called plays last year, it was a little bit trying to remember, ‘okay, what routes are we actually running on this play? Now, it’s like, ‘okay, I know the routes, so what’s my progression?’ We have a foundation now so it’s about elevating it to the next level. I think we’ll see some big growth from him. From a maturity standpoint, he now understands what it takes to be a successful quarterback in this conference. He understands the urgency or preparation, the urgency of really locking in on all those little details. 

Q: How do you manage expectations for young 5-star talent like a Terry Bussey or a Rueben Owens when maybe they don’t become All-Americans as freshman? 

Elko: I think it is understanding that of all the freshmen who went to college last year, there were less than five who had an impact like that. That’s the natural progression of college football. You’re making a jump into a new level. Both of those kids came from smaller schools and made the jump into SEC football. They’re both going to have great years for us this season. 

Q: How do you go about replacing so much production along the defensive line? 

Elko: That’s college football, right? You try to figure out how you can make that group the best it can be and then make sure you build a system around them that allows them to be successful. We’re really excited with some of the guys we have back in Cashius (Howell) and Rylan Kennedy. It’s DJ Hicks’ time to now step into a big role. And then you go and do what you need to do in the transfer portal. 

Q: Do you think the biggest improvement on defense will come from growing into Year 2 moreso than from a personnel standpoint? 

Elko: Yeah, I think so. The hardest thing on defense in Year 1 is that you can’t ever control the variables, right? You defend whatever the offense throws at you and that’s where reps and experience matter. If you look at some of the teams that fared better than us in the conference last year, they were in established systems and had pretty good comfortability in what they were doing. The teams that were a little bit more up and down were new coordinators, new systems, new structures. I just think experience matters a lot on defense. Having some guys back that now have a year in the system and know what this is all about will help us tremendously.