Has Mike Elko stabilized Texas A&M?

The Jimbo Fisher era at Texas A&M really had two major epochs. The first was the Fisher and Mike Elko era, where the new staff took over Sumlin’s roster and whipped it into a physical and fundamentally sound unit. The Aggies immediately began to build an identity as a trenches-oriented squad who would run the ball and control the box on defense.

After a 9-4, 8-5, 9-1, and 8-4 run where the defense’s points per game allowed dipped lower literally every season, Elko landed the head coaching job at Duke. The Blue Devils proceeded to go 9-4 and 8-5 while running the ball and playing tough defense. A&M entered the second Fisher epoch, wherein their recruiting went crazy with the top ranked class of all time in 2022 (eight 5-stars), expectations soared, and yet their intensity and quality in the trenches dipped.

The defense started to slip while the offense absolutely cratered and the team went 5-7 in 2022 and 7-6 in 2023. Expectations established by years of high level recruiting combined with the offensive collapse doomed Jimbo to buyout and A&M settled on Elko as his replacement.

Now what?

Well, a wild offseason with 20 outgoing transfers and 24 incoming in the first portal window has dramatically changed the roster. The coaching staff has been transformed with Elko securing the services of Jay Bateman as defensive coordinator and Collin Klein as offensive coordinator. Everything around A&M for the last year or more has indicated tumult and disorder. A much more quiet spring practice session and low expectations may be obscuring a still deeply talented roster with blue chips growing into upperclassmen years and a depth chart filled out by the transfer portal with some key veterans and role players. It’s possible the Aggies are primed for a big turnaround.

A more coherent roster

One of the big changes brought by the era of the transfer portal is the possibility of fielding winning, veteran secondaries on a consistent basis. College safeties in particular are often at their best as upperclassmen who have seen a lot of offense develop in front of them and know how to match route combinations and leverage the run. The upperclassmen ranks also include a lot of really good athletes who tried their hand at corner first before giving up and moving inside, where their athleticism and developed strength and mass would often have ranked them among the best safeties out of high school. Cornerback is more contingent upon elite athleticism but even there it’s common for overlooked athletes to emerge at smaller schools.

The Aggies grabbed EIGHT (seven if DeRickey Wright stays at Vanderbilt) proven defensive backs to add to their roster. Elko also successfully convinced top cornerback Tyreek Chappell to return and kept former bluechip prospect and rising junior Bryce Anderson out of the transfer portal.

Four incoming defensive backs were starting cornerbacks last year for their previous schools, Florida transfer Jaydon Hill started at nickel last year in Gainesville, and the two safeties already on campus both started last year at San Diego State and Central Michigan respectively.

All of that adds up to a quite a bit of knowhow and proven skill for an Aggie secondary that hasn’t been particularly well stocked with knowhow or depth in a few years. Do the incoming transfers have the recruiting pedigree of former Aggie defensive back rooms? No, but they have made a lot more plays on the ball in college games.

Linebacker is similar, the Aggies landed veteran Scooby Williams from Florida and FCS transfer Alex Howard to join Taurean York, a 5-foot-11 Mike the Aggies poached from Baylor late in the recruiting cycle who proved to have immediate impact as a freshman.

Up front the Aggies still have a horde of former blue chip D-linemen such as DJ Hicks, Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy, and Shemar Turner but still successfully added Purdue standout Nic Scourton through the transfer portal after Bryan, TX product had 10 sacks in 2023 for the Boilermakers. The size and talent the Aggies have been known for squandering in the trenches is still there but now backed by veterans under a proven defensive staff.

The transfers coming in are nearly entirely of the “made the most with opportunities at lower levels” variety, which tend to be very good, as opposed to the “squandered opportunities as a blue chip recruit” sort which comprise a fair number of the departing talents. The overall talent level of the roster looks lower, but the skill and football ability is likely to be superior than it’s been.

Into the 21st century on offense

Jimbo made things difficult on offense with an insistence on running a lot of pro-style concepts with built-in answers on every play to every possible defensive adjustment. This runs counter to the modern preference for shot plays where the offensive coordinator dials up a primary read and then has a checkdown or “in case of emergency” outs to limit the damage if the play isn’t there.

Kansas State under Collin Klein had plenty of shot plays and vertical concepts with simplified reads. Klein loved scheming up double moves and vertical bombs on play-action while working from a very effective Wildcat run game. Said run game often included quarterback power-option schemes, which generates questions about whether this is a great fit for the still injured Conner Weigman at quarterback.

Weigman can run the ball some though and the Aggie personnel is perfectly suited to run the ball with schemes that don’t require the quarterback to be regularly involved. New offensive line coach Adam Cushing has proven he can get results at previous stops (Duke and Northwestern) and the O-line room is long on size and talent, if not experience. A little bit of quarterback option should go a long ways in helping the Aggies mash teams from spread alignments.

The much bigger question is not Weigman’s fit with Klein, who has shown command of a wide variety of offensive schemes beyond the option. It’s whether or not this team has weapons at receiver who can make the Aggies competitive at the highest levels of this game.

Incoming transfers Cyrus Allen (La Tech) and Jabre Barber (Troy) aren’t the most imposing weapons and returning receivers Ainias Smith and Moose Muhammad haven’t shown elite ability outside either. It’s likely everyone is made to look better by not having to execute Jimbo’s schemes but top teams who can play man coverage outside and load the middle of the field may be a problem.

The Aggies embracing an old school, RC Slocum style of pairing a power run game with physical defense could help them maintain an identity built around toughness that translates to wins immediately under Elko. The top end firepower doesn’t appear to be there to achieve more but the recent days of floundering are probably over.

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