Mike Elko highlights lessons learned from Jimbo Fisher, Brian Kelly

After a surprisingly successful first season at Duke, Mike Elko looks like one of the best head coaching hires of the 2021-22 coaching carousel. Maybe all that success shouldn’t be surprising given his background, though.

Having worked his way up from Penn and the Merchant Marine Academy, Elko became the defensive coordinator for Notre Dame in 2017. The next year he made the jump to Texas A&M. In the process, he learned plenty of lessons from Brian Kelly and Jimbo Fisher.

“Brian Kelly, the biggest thing that was my first exposure to a big brand,” Mike Elko told Adam Breneman about what he learned from Kelly. “Coaching football at Notre Dame is different than anything I really had experienced. How he ran that program as the CEO, how he managed, how he prepared our players to handle that spotlight, Brian’s a phenomenal football coach.”

Elko only spent one season at Notre Dame but it was an incredibly important season. In 2016, Notre Dame had its worst year under Kelly, going just 4-8. Kelly, needing to make changes quickly, brought in a new offensive and defensive coordinator. It worked and Elko was able to see that process firsthand.

Still, he quickly left for Texas A&M and found that there was also plenty to learn from Jimbo Fisher.

“Jimbo’s a great offensive mind so I think that’s kinda where it started and going against him every day with the different things they do schematically that’s something I thought really developed my game as a defensive coordinator.”

Mike Elko took what he learned from both of these coaches and used it early during his career at Duke. In one season, he was able to take a 3-9 team and finish 9-4 with a Military Bowl win. Now, the biggest challenge for Elko is going to be able to find a way to sustain success.

Mike Elko on handling preseason hype

Ahead of the 2023 season, Mike Elko and Duke need to handle something that they didn’t last year — hype. Elko is aware of this hype and wants his team to block it out like they did negativity before last season.

“Last year, there was so much negative publicity around our program. We had to block it out. We had to talk to our guys a lot about what we do is what we do and nobody really knows. We got to become who we are capable become and go out there, get on those stages, and showcase it. Now, it’s just flipped,” Elko said.

“We’re saying basically, those same people that are telling you how good you are, they still don’t know. We still have to put the work in, we still have to go out and execute. We still got to make sure we’re doing the things day in and day out we can to become the best program we are capable of becoming. I think we got versed at really blocking the outside noise last year for the wrong reasons. We’re just trying to apply that this year to what is a much more positive publicity of our program going into the season.”

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