Mike Elko shreds overreactions after Week 1: ‘The reality is you don’t know’
Published:
Week 1 and overreactions go together like peanut butter and jelly, and last weekend’s festivities provided the college football world with plenty of fodder for said reactions.
From Tuscaloosa to Pasadena, fan bases were dismayed at their team’s opening week performances and are at times calling for drastic measures to take place.
And while many people are stoking those fires for a variety of reasons, there is a voice in the college football community who is calling on everybody to calm down, and it’s someone who isn’t even feeling the heat yet.
Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko was largely pleased with his squad’s 42-24 win over a strong UTSA team in the season-opener, but he also discussed the bigger picture of Week 1 on his weekly radio show.
“Everyone wants to use Week 1 as a gauge for if their team is good enough. But the reality is you don’t know,” Elko said. “I still remember 2020 when we played Vanderbilt in the opener and the conclusion was we should pull the plug on the season. Three months later we’re in the Orange Bowl and finished 4th in the country. That’s football.”
The season Elko is referencing is when Jimbo Fisher was still the head coach in College Station. During that COVID-impacted year, the Aggies opened the season by narrowly beating a lowly Vanderbilt team 17-12, in large part because they committed 3 turnovers.
But Elko summed things up perfectly. After being drubbed by eventual national champions Alabama the following week, TAMU got hot and upended the likes of Florida, Auburn and LSU before taking down North Carolina by a score of 42-27 in the Orange Bowl.
Thus, Elko’s reminder is a needed one for many college football fans. Week 1 is but an appetizer to the main course that is the rest of the season, and plenty of teams will improve, digress and surprise throughout the rest of the year.
Parker is currently the sports editor for the Enterprise-Journal in McComb, Mississippi. He's a graduate from Mizzou who has experience covering the Tiger football and basketball beats for SB Nation, and he's worked for a variety of sports news outlets in the past.
