Elko aims to fulfill Aggies’ potential as top program
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Dave Wilson, ESPN Staff Writer
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Mike Elko was introduced as Texas A&M’s new head coach on Monday, telling a group of fans gathered inside Kyle Field that he is ready for the big expectations facing him.
“We are going to build the premier football program in the country,” Elko said. “We are not going to talk about it anymore. We are going to be about it.”
Elko, 46, spent four years in College Station under Jimbo Fisher from 2018-2021 before leaving for his first head coaching opportunity at Duke, where he went 16-9 over the past two seasons and was named the ACC Coach of the Year in 2022.
Following Fisher’s dismissal on Nov. 12, Elko became a prime candidate to return to A&M, ultimately agreeing on a six-year contract that has a base salary of $7 million per year but with several College Football Playoff incentives: $1 million for a CFP appearance; $1.5 million for advancing to the CFP quarterfinals or winning the SEC; $2 million for a CFP semifinal appearance; $2.5 million for the CFP title game; $3.5 million for a national title. The contract includes an $11 million salary pool for assistants and support staff, which Bjork called “reasonable but competitive,” estimating it was in the top 10 nationally.
The contract still needs to be approved at a Nov. 30 meeting of the board of regents, but marks a departure from Fisher’s fully guaranteed contract that paid $9.5 million annually. In this case, if Elko led the Aggies to a national title, he’d make $10.5 million and any postseason incentive adds an additional year to his contract.
“We wanted to be fair in the market,” Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said. “But we also wanted to say, hey, look, I think the landscape can change where you actually have to earn things. If somebody believes in themselves, believes in their plan, they have the right approach, they’ll earn it. And as you can see, you have a chance to be paid like a national championship-level coach.”
Both Elko and Bjork reiterated that they wanted interim coach Elijah Robinson, who will remain the acting head coach through a bowl game, to remain on staff as long as he wanted and that it was a priority to try to retain him.
Elko faces a daunting schedule in his first weeks on the job. Players are allowed to enter the transfer portal immediately due to the coaching change and he’ll have to hire a staff and put the finishing touches on the Aggies’ recruiting class for the December 20 signing day. But he has somewhat of a head start because he knows so many players on the current roster.
“There’s not many times when you go into the first team meeting and 50 of the players come up and give you a big hug and welcome you back,” Elko said. “But then I think when you get up in front of them, all of that has to go away, because it’s about new leadership. It’s about new direction. It’s about establishing a new identity.”
The Aggies turned to Elko in search of that identity. Under Fisher, they’d fallen into a cycle of underachievement, particularly in regards to Fisher’s offensive scheme — which struggled. With Elko on Fisher’s staff, the Aggies went 34-14 in four years. In the last two without him, they went 12-12.
Elko is Texas A&M’s first defensive head coach since the Aggies fired R.C. Slocum, the winningest head coach in school history, in 2002. Elko stopped to shake hands with Slocum, who Bjork said was a resource during the search along with multiple former A&M players, after his introductory speech to fans on his way to Monday’s news conference.
Elko believes a defensive coach can instill a blue-collar work ethic, but he said the “million-dollar question” will be how his offense looks, citing the recent trends among national championship programs like Alabama or Georgia.
“There’s a toughness that’s built within the program that obviously has to do with defense,” Elko said. “I think every one of those teams at some point in the season has had to dig deep on defense and find a way to win a really important game, but I think all of those teams have also been explosive on offense with really talented quarterback play. I do think there’s a blue-collar toughness that comes from having a great defense that stands the test of time. But if you can’t score points, you won’t win games enough to be where we want to be.”
Bjork said his search process included discussions with several former A&M players, including Heisman winner Johnny Manziel, who told Bjork that the Aggies needed to be “an intimidating bully.”
“He actually had another adjective, but I can’t say that,” Bjork said, adding that he found that powerful coming from an offensive player.
Elko arrived in College Station about 2 a.m. on Monday after a weekend of rumors linking Kentucky coach Mark Stoops to the Aggies job before the final selection of Elko. Bjork said that A&M’s process included conversations with about 30 coaches, including a final group of “more than five” on Saturday, so there were still a lot of moving parts.
“We wanted to make sure that we engaged with our final group of candidates as long as possible,” Bjork said. “So I don’t know how all of that got out. I respect Coach Stoops. He’s been in the SEC a long time. … The process was fluid until the very end, but that’s why we had to get it right. I think the process yielded the right result. And that’s why we’re here today.”
Elko said his wife and three children still have several ties in the area from their four-year stint in College Station, and got emotional talking about the sacrifices his family has made chasing his dreams, beginning with his first coordinator job at the Merchant Marine Academy in 2001 to now, his chance to become the head coach of an SEC program that Elko thinks can win a national championship.
“From the moment I came down here back in 2018, I’ve been blown away by this place,” Elko said. “[It’s] resourced as the premier football program in the country, supported by the 12th Man, the absolute best fan base in the country.”
Elko said he knows the talk about Texas A&M has always been about unfulfilled potential since it hasn’t won a conference title since 1998 or a national title since 1939, but he feels like he has the blueprint to change that.
“We’ve got to fulfill that potential,” Elko said. “I think that happens with work and I think that was the message I sent to the players. That was the message I tried to deliver to the crowd. We can’t just say we want to do something. We can’t just say we want to arrive somewhere. We’ve got to be committed to all the work that it’s going to take from today until we kick off next September.”
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Dave Wilson
BROOKINGS, S.D. — When Scott Peterman, a South Carolina season-ticket holder, examined the Oct. 25 football schedule, he realized he had two options: He could stay at home and watch his Gamecocks play Alabama. Or he could travel 1,300 miles to the fourth-largest town in South Dakota to watch some FCS football.
But this wasn’t just any FCS game. It was No. 1 North Dakota State vs. No. 2 South Dakota State. The Bison vs. the Jackrabbits for the Dakota Marker, the arena where champions are forged. So Peterman, obviously, decided to make the pilgrimage.
“Small college football is about the old-school rivalries where they dislike each other a good bit and it shows,” said Peterman, who played linebacker at Wofford before graduating from South Carolina. “It’s hard-nosed football. College football has become more like a business now. I’m not saying these kids are not going to make it [to the NFL]. Some will, but the vast majority of ’em are not. But these kids are playing football to play football.”
And, boy, do they play some football. Since 2011, North Dakota State has won 10 national championships. South Dakota State has won two, as many as every school from the other 48 states combined. (James Madison won the title for the 2016 season and Sam Houston won the spring COVID title game in 2021, beating SDSU.) Each year, the road to those titles really begins with this rivalry game in October, in either Brookings down south or Fargo up north. This would be just the fourth No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in the regular season in FCS history. Three of those came in the Dakota Marker.
It’s one of the most unique rivalries in college football. A heated matchup with mostly polite fans who will tell anyone that will listen about the virtues of football in the Dakotas and how proud they are of all their small-town boys that come to play for the state’s de facto professional teams. Fans brag about how the two programs make each other better.
“It’s a bitter respect,” Bison fan Les Ressler said.
The agricultural schools have played for nearly 125 years, but for the first century or so, it was a bit of a secondary rivalry. NDSU’s venom was originally mostly reserved for North Dakota. SDSU had it out for South Dakota. But in 2004, the States decided to move from Division II to D-I, and the original rival schools opted to stay put.
Two coaches, two athletic directors and two administrators from NDSU and SDSU met at the state line between the two and shook on their new partnership of sorts. They would move together. A quartzite stone nearby marked the spot where north and south were split by an imaginary line. A Dakota Marker.
“It’s very similar to a Michigan-Ohio State or Alabama-Georgia, where it’s a border battle,” said Ryan McKnight, who played offensive line at South Dakota State from 2006-2010 and hosts a huge tailgate party as the president of the Jackrabbit Former Players Association. “It’s a national championship feel for a regular-season game,” McKnight said. “You don’t get that everywhere. You don’t get that in other rivalries.”
At the JFPA party, the air was filled with the light fragrance of livestock and an occasional waft of beer. A massive smoker that would be the envy of any Texan rose into the sky on a huge trailer. The entire rig was built by former Jacks. Brookings was buzzing with the opportunity for revenge.
The Jackrabbits, winners of 33 straight home games, had lost twice to the Bison last year, once in the Marker in Fargo, and once in the FCS playoff semifinals. In that game, North Dakota State QB Cam Miller had four total touchdowns, and during a TV interview on the field, he let loose. “Now I can say it,” Miller said. “I hate them. I hate the Jackrabbits.”
Mikey Daniel, a Brookings native and former SDSU running back, who spent three seasons in the NFL, was eager for them to be back in South Dakota, because he said the Jackrabbits defend their turf.
“We can’t stand each other,” he said. “I was here from 2015-2019. Never lost [to] these guys at home. Carson Wentz. Trey Lance, any of [the NDSU stars], we don’t like them.”
Most of the players on both teams are from this part of the country — the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin — and often are recruited by both schools. Things sometimes get personal.
But at other times, NDSU-SDSU is one of the most polite rivalries in college football. Fans will tell you that the two teams make each other better. SDSU fans begrudgingly acknowledge that NDSU is one of the great programs in all of sports. NDSU fans admire how SDSU has stepped its game up.
Fans walk up and down Main Ave., hitting classic bars like Ray’s Corner, where Kari Westlund dishes some vicious trash talk.
“Everybody wants to live in South Dakota,” Westlund said, while wearing a “Buck the Fison” T-shirt. “Blue and yellow are much prettier colors than green and gold. We’re warmer.”
The weather is a frequent topic of discussion when canvassing fans on what the biggest differences are between the two Dakotas.
Vern Muscha of Bismarck, North Dakota, thinks it’s a badge of honor.
“We’re tougher. We’re up north,” he said. “You boys in the south here, it’s warmer. You can’t take the tough s—.”
Nick’s Hamburger Shop has been open since 1929. Owner Justin Price, who bought it in July and serves as just the fourth steward since the counter-service spot opened, says the SDSU-NDSU rivalry has always been a strange mix of politeness and pride.
“I think there’s that Midwest friendliness to it until the game starts,” he said. “Then after it’s over, we just kind of both go our ways.”
The game didn’t kick off until 7 p.m. CT, but a record crowd of 19,477 packed the Jackrabbits’ Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium. It was mostly blue-and-yellow-clad fans, with NDSU fans admiring how SDSU has gotten better at protecting its stadium from the invading Bison horde.
Fans in striped overalls stood in line for cheese curds and chislic, the “official nosh of South Dakota,” red meat cubes (usually beef, lamb or venison) grilled, seasoned with garlic salt and eaten with toothpicks, like a bar snack.
All week, there were concerns about the availability of SDSU quarterback Chase Mason, who had injured his foot last week. One local podcaster compared rumors of Mason’s health to conspiracy theories about the moon landing.
Then the game started, and Mason was on the sideline in a boot. The game was effectively over quickly. NDSU quarterback Cole Payton racked up for 380 yards and four touchdown runs to lead North Dakota State to a 38-7 victory. The Bison had 500 yards, the Jackrabbits just 166. It was a bitter defeat. As the final seconds ticked off, the green and gold sprinted to the corner of the end zone to hoist the 75-pound Dakota Marker.
So, it’s been settled. North Dakota State has the inside track to this year’s national title, with likely home-field advantage in the playoffs. The Bison are now up one more game in the all-important series (12-10 since the move to Division I). But NDSU fans know South Dakota State will be back at the end of the year.
“If their starting quarterback wasn’t hurt, it would’ve made things a little bit different,” Bison fan Brandon Miller said. “I still feel we are the better team this year in the grand scheme of things, but it would’ve been a little bit better ball game today.”
As fans dispersed, a disappointed Jackrabbits fan, whose team had just lost its four-year-long home winning streak, walked by Miller and his tailgating crew and apologized. “Sorry about that,” she said, of SDSU’s lack of competitiveness.
In the hotel lobby by campus, NDSU fans walked in and saw a group of SDSU fans and apologized to them for the beatdown.
“Are you buying?” one Jackrabbits fan said, pointing to the hotel bar. “If we won, we would be.”
“That’s called North Dakota Nice and South Dakota Nice,” Miller said.
Peterman said games like this are more important now that NIL and the transfer portal have altered the fabric of the sport.
“For 99% of them, this is it for their football career,” he said. “They’re going to be going right back to work. They’ll be farmers and doctors and lawyers. That’s the heart of America right there.”
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