The Texas A&M Aggies football staff made Aggie fans excited recently, as they announced the commitment of four-star wide receiver Mike Brown, choosing A&M over Texas Michigan and Alabama as someone who could really help out the receivers.
There have already been a few changes on this team, with Mike Elko announcing that Terry Bussey will move to wide receiver full-time. With the offense looking to be a fresh-oiled machine for 2025, there were plenty of concerns on defense, and now with some of the defensive talent onto the NFL, their are plenty of answers that need to be discussed on the defensive side.
Elko already not joking around on defensive side
After the Aggies completely fell apart in their bowl game against USC, fans and Aggie coaches alike knew there had to be a change coming on the defensive side of the ball. Texas A&M went ahead to snag Lyle Hemphill from James Madison to the defensive staff. With James Madison's defense allowing the second-lowest success rate in the nation, this proved to be a home run hire, especially for a guy already familiar with Elko.
Now, Elko is digging even deeper on his defensive promise, by already committing to help fixing the issues on his own.
Mike Elko on being more involved on defense: "We've kind of addressed it throughout the offseason that I'll have a bigger role in what we're doing."
— TexAgs (@TexAgs) March 26, 2025
"It's an identification of an issue that needs to be solved and believing I have an ability to help solve it."
This Aggie team in 2024 allowed 289 points, which ranked 122 nationally. They also gave up an average of 406.1 yards last season, most of which came in the latter part of the year in losses to South Carolina, Auburn, Texas and USC.
Elko as a first-year head coach learned to take more matters into his own hands. Plenty of NFL coaches have done the same before. Plus, Elko has been a defensive coordinator for decades, Aggie fans should feel very comfortable knowing that he's helping out the defense as someone who's been speaking defense language for many years.