Mike Elko's reasonable answer about Marcel Reed and Brady Hart enrages Texas A&M fans

Texas A&M fans were incensed at a comment from Mike Elko today regarding the quarterback opportunities for Brady Hart vs. Marcel Reed. When asked about it, Elko gave what was actually a pretty reasonable answer— but with the way this season has gone so far, as you might expect, there were a lot of people pretty dissatisfied with it.

The reaction to this was... not great.

I get that people are looking for reasons to be upset with the way this season has gone so far— that's not all that far-fetched a proposition. But this is simply not something that there should be this much uproar over.

Texas A&M fans enraged at Elko's comments about Marcel Reed and Brady Hart

First of all, in no way is Elko saying this in a manner where any responsibility he has is elided. He's just putting the facts out there: though he's saying it in a diplomatic way for Brady's sake, he's saying that Hart has simply not shown that he can be a better quarterback option than Marcel can.

The argument to "give him a chance" is pretty ludicrous on its face: Hart is getting chances, every single practice. Fans don't see it, of course, so for some reason that triggers in people's minds that Hart is not getting a chance— but that's just not the case at all.

Elko and this team want to win the rest of their games. They want to go out and dominate on the field, and this is a coaching staff that is going to choose the quarterback who they believe gives them the best chance to do that.

Maybe you look at Reed and you think that there's no possibility that there's an option behind him that is worse. You wouldn't be the first to say that, of course. But the fact is that the coaching staff has pretty clearly demonstrated, through answers to questions like this and the fact that Hart has not gotten reps, that that is, in fact, what is happening.

This is also the worst time of the season, to this point, for fans to be crying out for Hart to get more snaps. Marcel is coming off of his best game of the season— one in which he looked, for long stretches, like the quarterback that he was last year. To bench him now would be pretty ridiculous— though he should definitely have a short leash at this point.

Here's the point: you can't have it both ways. Elko is to blame for the fact that this quarterback room does not have a better option than what Marcel has put out on the field. But you can't say that and say that his loyalty to Marcel is sinking him: either there is a better option behind Marcel or there isn't.

It's pretty clear that in the opinion of the staff, Hart would not be an improvement at this point in his career. What's more, many quarterbacks have been ruined by coaches that have put them out as starters before they were ready to go, so there's a development angle for Brady as well.

Elko answered this as honestly (yet also diplomatically) as he could have in this situation. Fans are going to be mad about it, because fans are mad about a lot of things right now. But you have to pick things to be mad at that make sense, and this is just not one of those things.

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