As more and more teams stumble for the first time during this college football season, the Texas A&M Aggies have been so incredibly steady. They improved to 6-0 on the year with their 34-17 home victory over Florida. While it may be another nail in the coffin for Billy Napier leading the Gators, this is another pelt on the wall for Mike Elko. He has proven to be a massive difference maker for this team.
The talent has always been there, or it has been there for the better part of a decade now. Texas A&M has recruited at a national championship-level for quite a while now, but it took the right man in charge to lead them down the path of righteousness. Texas A&M still has to play teams like LSU, Missouri and Texas on the road this year, but the Aggies have taken care of business at home so far.
For years, this program never felt like one you could trust to win games like this. Even if Florida did make it interesting, it never felt like Texas A&M was not in control the entire time. Again, every team of substance slips up during the course of a season. So far, Texas A&M has been able to avoid stepping in it when other teams on their perceived level have been more than comfortable with that. It shows.
What we are seeing is a head coach who is taking a good team and helping it learn how to be great.
Mike Elko might be the SEC Coach of the Year when all is said and done
Let's make one thing clear. Winning at Duke is hard. Very hard, indeed. To be quite frank, winning at a ridiculously high level at Texas A&M is not a piece of cake either. Again, Elko has the resources to be great at this job, but it is his temperament and his steadiness that is guiding this team to new heights. You have to wonder how far he can take this team. To the playoff, yes, but what if he can win it all now?
Honestly, Texas A&M could conceivably win the 12-team College Football Playoff if the Aggies get the right series of matchups. It is not going to be a lack of talent that knocks them out in the end. That has always been the most frustrating part about Texas A&M. If the Aggies were to ever get to the big stage, one would think they could more than hold their own. Now that Elko is thriving, they can do this.
In the end, what we are seeing out of Texas A&M is a bit unusual for their standard. The Aggies may get off to a hot start, but will almost always fade down the stretch. It had been in their DNA, but maybe they are tigers changing their stripes? Ultimately, this is what the Aggies wished they could be as soon as they came to the SEC some 13 years ago. It took a bit, but the Aggies have finally arrived.
With more teams starting to fall around them, the Aggies' rise to prominence is impossible to ignore.