Mike Elko’s hot mic postgame comment to Will Stein summed up Texas A&M’s loss perfectly

Texas A&M is coming off of a gutting loss to the Kentucky Wildcats, losing by 10 as a 17-point favorite. It was only the fourth time that Mike Elko has lost at Kyle Field, but each of the previous three have been to either teams that played for the national championship or in the national semifinals.

That is not a likely outcome for Will Stein’s Kentucky team, at least this year, so this is definitely not only an unforeseen loss, but a completely mindset-shifting one. The most shocking thing was the defense getting rolled over in the third quarter— the Kentucky Wildcats (albeit with the best portal offensive line money can buy) absolutely pushed A&M around in that frame.

When the two head coaches met at midfield after the game, Mike Elko had a very short but very direct message for Will Stein— and it summed up the game perfectly. Right before turning around to head to the locker room, Elko told Stein “you guys kicked our ass, good job.”

Mike Elko’s hot mic comment shows that he knows A&M got pushed around by Kentucky

In fairness, it’s not like this is Mark Stoops’s Kentucky— Stein has brought in a lot of good players, especially on the offensive front and at running back. But this is not an Aggie defense that should be outplayed physically by such a large margin by any team, and that’s exactly what we saw in that third quarter.

Credit where credit is due— A&M bowed up for large portions of the game on defense. But giving so much ground in that third-quarter run by the Wildcats, when A&M had no momentum at all, was really what completely doomed the Aggies.

This is the identity that Stein wanted to build with his personnel, and in his first year, he has done just that. Mike Elko’s Aggies, meanwhile, are still searching for an identity on offense this year— and it has a lot to do with the guy taking the snaps behind center right now.

A first-year offensive coordinator in Holmon Wiggins doesn’t help, either, though the play calling was not the issue in this one. A&M has the personnel to do a lot of different things on offense— it’s just that none of it is working right now.

Interestingly, early on it looked like the Aggies were the team that was going to be more physical in this one, as we all expected. The running game was excellent in the first half, especially when KJ Edwards got the ball, but after how the third quarter went, all of that was out the window.

The Aggies have a heck of a lot of soul-searching to do after that game. With LSU coming up this next week, they had better find some answers in a hurry.

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