Texas A&M football fans are as excited as they can be about the future of the program under Mike Elko, and for good reason. The head man for Texas A&M is far ahead of schedule through two years in College Station, having taken the Ags to the College Football Playoff behind an 11-win regular season in 2025, where they lost a very close game to the eventual national runners-up in Miami.
The metrics and results have not only improved massively for this team over the past couple of years, but the national reputation for the Aggies has been brought up out of the mud. In the waning years of Jimbo Fisher's tenure, it was regular to see he or the program as the butt of some joke around college football circles— under Elko, that has not been the case.
Athlon's yearly anonymous coaching survey only confirms these notions, as Mike Elko once again is receiving adulation for the work he's done in College Station.
Anonymous coaching survey praises Elko's culture in College Station
Here's an excerpt of what was said about the Aggies and Mike Elko:
Anonymous Coach Comments on Texas A&M in Athlon Sports CFB Magazine
— SEC Mike (@MichaelWBratton) May 19, 2026
“Mike Elko is a real-deal ball coach.
"They play complete team football. You watch them and you see the way they handle adversity at times throughout the season — that doesn’t just happen unless you’ve got a… pic.twitter.com/luLcGjqOYK
"Mike Elko is a real-deal ball coach. The way [the Aggies] carry themselves, the way they compete, how physical they are on both sides of the line of scrimmage. They play complete team football... You watch them and you see the way they handle adversity at times throughout the season– that doesn't just happen unless you've got a culture."Anonymous coach
The Aggies under Jimbo Fisher had a reputation for bringing in players that were high-level recruits but never developing them, as well as remarkably undisciplined play on the field much of the time. The complexity of Fisher's offense combined with ineffective coaching created issues for the head man when it came to getting the most out of the stellar personnel he assembled.
There is no such issue with Elko so far. The Aggie defense has come leaps and bounds from where it was when Fisher was fired, and they look poised to take yet another jump here in the near future. Elko has, every single year, identified and addressed the pressing needs of the team from a personnel standpoint, and every single year, the team has improved as a result.
It's not just the personnel, though. The coaching that he and his group have brought to this program has instilled a mentality among the players which was not present in the past. Though the Aggies have been thin at certain positions and less physically talented in these years where they've relied so heavily on the portal to fix the bare cupboard that was left, the players have played with an edge that all but erases those deficiencies.
As the roster continues to accrue talent— with a massive infusion coming by way of the 2026 class, and an eye-popping amount headed the Aggies' way in 2027— that will only become more pronounced. Bringing in those big time recruits is the last step for the Aggies to becoming the dominant national power that they are all but assured of being at this point, and it's coming soon.
The Aggies will not underachieve under Elko in the same way that they did before— those days are gone. Fans and foes alike had better get used to it, because Elko isn't going anywhere.
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