Texas A&M football: 5 candidates who could replace Mike Elko
By Jeff Shull
Texas A&M football has seen a couple of assistant coaches leave for other opportunities, and Mike Elko could be next; here are five potential replacements.
We know it’s coming, it’s only a matter of time. Texas A&M football defensive coordinator Mike Elko is going to get a head coaching job somewhere. He might even take a better offer for the same position at the next level. He’s one of the most well-respected, young defensive minds in football. He’s one of only a couple of coaches to have a Top 50 defense for seven seasons in a row.
He interviewed for a head coaching job at Temple this offseason before ultimately deciding it wasn’t the right opportunity. Now, an NFL coach is calling, and it’s one who has Aggie ties.
Zac Taylor started as a graduate assistant for his father-in-law Mike Sherman with Texas A&M in 2008. He followed Sherman to the Dolphins as the assistant quarterbacks coach and worked his way up to being the Los Angeles Rams wide receivers and quarterbacks coach the previous two seasons. Now, he’s been hired as the Cincinnati Bengals head coach.
He already took Jimbo Fisher’s offensive line coach, Jim Turner, who has established himself as one of the better offensive line coaches and recruiters in college football. The list of first round NFL draft picks he personally recruited to Texas A&M is quite impressive.
Taylor isn’t done trying to poach coaches from Fisher’s staff as Elko has been named among a list of coaches to be Taylor’s defensive coordinator.
The NFL is definitely a step up, but it’s unclear if Elko prefers to go that route or wait for a big time head coaching job to open up at the college level. Regardless, the need to replace Elko could be coming sooner rather than later, so let’s have a look at some coaches who could replace him.