Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
DALLAS — Texas A&M paid $75 million to fire Jimbo Fisher and hired Mike Elko away from Duke to bring some stability to a program that has been suffering through years of dysfunction.
"A lot going on, it made it hard to kind of focus on football at times," left tackle Trey Zuhn III said Thursday about the end of last season. "But it's completely different now."
Elko said during his debut at SEC Media Days that he never really looked back at all that, and will let others judge the differences between him and Fisher.
"At my opening press conference, I said it was time for us stop talking about what were capable of, to roll up our sleeves and do the work and start to fulfill our potential," Elko said. "In the last seven months, that's exactly what we have done. I'm proud of how quiet our offseason has been. I'm proud of how quickly our players have adapted to a new culture and a new way of attacking football."
There certainly was a lot of noise around the program when Elko, their former defensive coordinator, was hired last November.
The Aggies had anticipated much more when Fisher was hired away from Florida State in December 2017, four years after the Seminoles won an undefeated national championship. Texas A&M even extended his fully guaranteed contract back to 10 years after a 9-1 record during the 2020 pandemic season, but that ended up being his best at A&M.
Fisher was fired after the 10th game last season, a 41-point win over Mississippi State, with a 45-24 record in College Station. He was 27-21 in the SEC with the Aggies and never even won a division title — something Elko won't have an opportunity to do since the now-expanded 16-team league has eliminated divisions.
Elko was A&M's defensive coordinator during Fisher's first four seasons (2018-21) before leaving for his first head coaching job. Duke had won only 10 games combined the previous three seasons, but went 16-9 with Elko in the same two-year span the Aggies were 12-13.
Before Elko was hired, Kentucky coach Mark Stoops appeared to be the primary target for the Aggies.
"I was pursued pretty aggressively by them, and we'll just leave it at that out of respect for everybody involved," Stoops acknowledged Thursday. "There's a lot of people, you know, over the years and, you know, a lot of interactions between people. But it was very brief."
Stoops is going in 12th season at Kentucky, making him the league's longest-tenured coach following Nick Saban's retirement as Alabama's coach this offseason. The Wildcats have had only one losing season the past eight years, that coming in the pandemic-affect 2020 season.
Commissioner Greg Sankey, in his introduction of Stoops, pointed him out as the "one continuous coach" in the league since he became commissioner in 2015. The Wildcats have been to bowl games each of the past eight seasons, a streak exceeded in the SEC only by Georgia, Alabama and newcomer Oklahoma.
"I want to continue to succeed. Like I said, I don't look down on some of the things we've done," Stoops said. "We want more. But, you know, the consistency that you have to have in this league is difficult. There's some great schools, some great programs, that have been up and down and we've been relatively stable. Again, not good enough."
Elko said just under half of the Texas A&M roster has turned over since last year, including 41 new scholarship players. He mentioned being intentional about who was brought in, and described it as awesome to watch the team bond together and buy into the culture.
They open the season Aug. 31 against Notre Dame.
"He kind of went back to the roots and made sure ... he taught us how to win and how to be competitive. He made sure that's like a main part of our being as A&M, as a football team," said Zuhn, the offensive lineman. "So we're competing in everything, from agility to conditioning to weight room. We're just competing and getting better."
Competition and accountability on and off the field.
Without naming names, Zuhn recalled a teammate who was late to a team meeting because of car trouble, and Elko made that player provide a receipt of the service to replace his tire. Players have to check in for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
"Coach helped a lot with coming in with accountability," defensive tackle Shemar Turner said. "He's helped us, making us hold ourselves accountable and the whole team accountable."
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