Update: Texas A&M's Hiring Of Mike Elko Not Great, But He's Better Than Mark Stoops

Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork nearly made another huge mistake Saturday night by hiring Kentucky coach Mark Stoops.

On Sunday, he made up for it by hiring Duke coach Mike Elko instead to be Texas A&M's new football coach. The Houston Chronicle's Brent Zwerneman first reported the story Sunday afternoon. TexAgs.com confirmed it to OutKick. Zwerneman was the first to report in July of 2021 that Texas and Oklahoma would be joining the Southeastern Conference, which will happen next season.

Texas A&M Goes For Former Aggie DC Mike Elko

Elko swiftly turned around the Duke program after leaving the Aggies' defensive coordinator post following the 2021 season. His first Blue Devils team went 9-4 overall and 5-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2022. Duke suffered three straight losing seasons before his arrival - 5-7, 2-9 and 3-9 from 2019-21.

Duke is 7-5 and 4-4 this season.

Bjork was close to hiring Kentucky coach Mark Stoops on Saturday night before an avalanche of social media sentiment against the hire hit after work leaked of his move. Texas A&M's higher ups also voiced displeasure about the potential move. And then Bjork nixed it, according to Texas A&M sources.

Stoops then came out and said he was not interested. But before the avalanche against it, he was. And he would likely be Texas A&M's coach today had Bjork kept going. Stoops, 56, has had some success at Kentucky, which historically has been a difficult place to do that. Through 11 seasons, he has had seven winning seasons, including three straight.

Former Duke Coach Mike Elko Is A Rising Young Star

But he has also been known for poor offenses, which is largely what got previous Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher fired. The Wildcats upset No. 10 Louisville, 38-31, on Saturday night, but that improved them to only 7-5 overall. They finished 3-5 in the SEC. Stoops has rarely done well in the SEC. Through 11 seasons, Kentucky has had two winning records in the league - 5-3 in 2018 and 5-3 in 2021. He is 35-55 in the SEC as the Wildcats' coach.

Before the criticism for the near hiring of Stoops, Bjork has taken a lot of heat in recent years for extending Fisher's contract after a 10-1 record in the COVID season. Fisher was already making $7.5 million in a 10-year contract at the time via his hiring from Florida State by then-athletic director Scott Woodward after the 2017 season. Bjork upped him to $9 million through 2031 after the 2020 season in which Fisher only did what he was hired to do. So, Fisher walked away with a $76 million buyout, thanks to Bjork.

Terms of Elko's contract with Texas A&M and his buyout had not yet been released as of Sunday night.

Mike Elko, 46, is obviously a defensive coach as he was A&M defensive coordinator from 2018-21 and Notre Dame's DC in 2017. But he is a rising, young coach who was very popular among A&M people and boosters while the Aggies' defensive coordinator.

Mike Elko's Offenses At Duke Were Not As Bad As A&M's

Elko also had a better scoring offense in 2022 than A&M's under Fisher or Kentucky's under Mark Stoops. Duke averaged 32.8 points a game for No. 32 in the nation in scoring when Elko had quarterback Riley Leonard healthy for the whole season. A&M finished No. 100 in scoring in 2022 with 22.8 points a game. Kentucky was 111th with 20.4 points a game.

Duke dipped to No. 62 in scoring this season at 27.8 with Leonard hobbled for much of the season by a toe injury.

Elko spent much of Sunday speaking with Texas A&M officials after some conversations late Saturday night.

This doesn't look like a bad hire. But it blows no one away, either. In the end, a football program with major problems on offense just hired a defensive coordinator-type head coach.

And, funny thing about it, the hire looks much better next to the near hire of Mark Stoops than it would have on its own.

Written by
Guilbeau joined OutKick as an SEC columnist in September of 2021 after covering LSU and the Saints for 17 years at USA TODAY Louisiana. He has been a national columnist/feature writer since the summer of 2022, covering college football, basketball and baseball with some NFL, NBA, MLB, TV and Movies and general assignment, including hot dog taste tests. A New Orleans native and Mizzou graduate, he has consistently won Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) and Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) awards since covering Alabama and Auburn at the Mobile Press-Register (1993-98) and LSU and the Saints at the Baton Rouge Advocate (1998-2004). In 2021, Guilbeau won an FWAA 1st for a game feature, placed in APSE Beat Writing, Breaking News and Explanatory, and won Beat Writer of the Year from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA). He won an FWAA columnist 1st in 2017 and was FWAA's top overall winner in 2016 with 1st in game story, 2nd in columns, and features honorable mention. Guilbeau completed a book in 2022 about LSU's five-time national champion coach - "Everything Matters In Baseball: The Skip Bertman Story" - that is available at www.acadianhouse.com, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble outlets. He lives in Baton Rouge with his wife, the former Michelle Millhollon of Thibodaux who previously covered politics for the Baton Rouge Advocate and is a communications director.