Former hated rival calls out Texas A&M football's Mike Elko: 'You lied'

Mack Brown says Mike Elko lied when recruiting against him; Is the criticism of new Texas A&M football head coach a fair one?

The Mack Brown era at Texas coincided with what can charitably be called a "down stretch" for Texas A&M football. While Brown was building the Longhorns to reach heights they had only achieved under one other head coach in their history, the Aggies had two of their worst in Dennis Franchione and Mike Sherman.

During this period of ignominy, a dislike of the Texas head man was common among Aggie fans. Of course, much like Slocum with A&M, the Longhorns ended up pushing out Brown for what became an extremely disappointing replacement when they hired Charlie Strong.

After a brief announcing career with ESPN, Brown ended back up at UNC, where he was before taking the Texas job. He's had relative success with the Tar Heels so far, but the Aggies have gotten the better of him in their only matchup: the 2020 Orange Bowl, a memorable 41-27 victory for the Maroon and White.

Of course, new Aggie head coach Mike Elko has his own (somewhat brief) history with Brown. Coming from Duke, Elko was very recently the coach of the rival Blue Devils, facing off against the Heels twice as a head coach. Both were very close losses, by three and two points in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Apparently, though, it was on the recruiting trail where Elko did some things to ruffle Brown's feathers. Mack alleges that Elko was telling recruits that he would be at Duke longer than Brown would be at UNC—of course, that turned out to not be the case, as Elko has now taken the A&M job.

So, is that a fair criticism? Maybe. I'm sure Elko believed what he was saying when he said it—it seems A&M was one on a very short list of schools that he would have left Duke for, given how comfortable he was up in Durham.

In any case, Brown then posted this photo not long after:

I guess this is a criticism that he doesn't levy at everyone!