The Texas A&M football defense lost a major asset in defensive coordinator Mike Elko, who took his defensive expertise to Duke, as their new head coach. With Elko at the helm, this defense ranked 3rd overall in scoring defense, 9th in passing defense, 30th in run defense, and 7th in red zone defense.
These are impressive numbers any way you look at it and a valuable asset was lost for the Aggies. However, they were able to find a new defensive coordinator that can continue to make the defense the strength of this team, and that’s where D.J. Durkin comes in.
It may be a controversial hire, but it’s one that will help this team build a formidable defense while this young offense comes along. Here are a few reasons why this move is a good one for the Aggies.
1. D.J Durkin will bring a similar defensive philosophy to Texas A&M football
Elko’s defensive scheme consisted of 4 defensive linemen, two linebackers, 4 defensive backs, and a rover with the ability to blitz and drop back into coverage. While Durkin has used more of a 3-4 defensive scheme, the main similarity is their ability to create pressure without sacrificing players in the secondary. Both value active defensive linemen and linebackers with the ability to get pressure which then allows them to drop more defenders back into coverage to negate deep ball completions.
Jimbo Fisher on differences of A&M's defense under DJ Durkin: "The way you do things, the way you cover a certain formation. ... Typical things that people would tweak and turn."
— Aggie Sports (@Aggie_Sports) March 24, 2022
Durkin will also be able to work with Jimbo Fisher, and those two should be able to come up with interesting defensive looks after Fisher came out after the Durkin hire saying that the team would still focus on using the 4-2-5 defensive scheme. It will be interesting to see how they can merge the 4-2-5 and the 3-4 defensive looks.