Coming into the season, some college football observers questioned if Mike Elko was the right man to turn things around in Aggie Land.
Fast forward to today after an undefeated 9-0 start to the season and a high seed in the College Football Playoff well within his team’s grasp, Elko is now a major candidate for multiple Coach of the Year awards, in line for a big extension and rumored to be a top target on Penn State’s wish list for its current head coach opening.
Although his stock is white hot in coaching circles, here are 3 reasons the Aggies head man should stay in College Station and not worry about the Penn State job, or any other job for that matter.
1. Winning at Texas A&M in the SEC will make Elko a legend
To say Texas A&M is in the middle of a dream season would be a huge understatement, as the Aggies have a realistic chance to win the program’s first conference title since 1998. If Elko can get Texas A&M a berth in its first-ever SEC title game, along with garnering the programs first-ever berth in the College Football Playoff, he would have accomplished in 2 seasons what no Aggie coach before him was able to get done.
For an example of how revered Elko would be in College Station if he was able to win an SEC title and make noise in the playoff all one must do is look at R.C Slocum and Johnny Manziel.
Despite not winning a national championship, many people in Aggie circles view Slocum as an Aggie legend as the former coach won 4 conference championships, including A&M’s only Big 12 championship. Slocum never had a losing record in 14 seasons at the helm, and his 72% overall winning percentage is one of the best in program history.
If Elko keeps his current pace, he’ll be the first A&M head coach to win over 70% of his games since Slocum.
In Manziel’s case, just by having the best individual season in program history while making A&M relevant in the SEC, he will be revered by every Aggie fan for the rest of his life.
With A&M having not won anything of note since joining the SEC in 2012 (and along with rival Texas now being in the conference), Elko has a huge opportunity to not only completely change the narrative in College Station, but win at a level which no coach in A&M history has been able to reach while creating his own legacy.
This is something he can’t do in Happy Valley, as anything he does there will be following in the legendary footsteps of Joe Paterno.
2. Recruiting at A&M is easier than at Penn State
The adage if you can’t recruit at a high level you can’t win at a high level in college sports is at a premium today as we live in the NIL era.
With A&M consistently having one of the top 3 endowments given to its athletic programs on a yearly basis, Elko would be walking away from one of the biggest recruiting advantages in the nation if he left. Thanks to A&M’s yearly impressive budgets, Elko currently can consistently grab big time high school recruits and high-level transfers through the portal every year, unlike many of his competitors.
Just this past offseason, Elko was able to hit big in the portal, as transfers Mario Craver, KC Concepcion, Nate Boerkircher on offense and Dayon Hayes and Tyler Onyedim on defense have all played key roles in the Aggies’ 8-0 start this season. Let’s also not forget that game-wrecker Cashius Howell was a member of Elko’s 2024 portal class.
Having some of the biggest financial backing in the nation, combined with Elko’s ability to recruit at a high level, has A&M on pace to have a top 10 recruiting class in the 2026, 27 and 28 recruiting cycles.
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3. A&M is the better job long term
The type of foundation Elko has been built in just 2 years in College Station would be extremely hard for him to duplicate in Happy Valley in even a decade.
Fundamentally it’s a gap which will never close, as Penn State simply can’t compete with the resources at his disposal in Aggie Land no matter how much money it throws at him. With an extremely strong foundation in place that could make him a legend in the college football world in the future, Elko doesn’t have any logical reason to leave College Station at this point in his tenure.
If he’s fortunate enough to win a national championship or consistently have A&M in the SEC title race, Elko’s reputation moves from people wondering who he is to being viewed as one of top coaches in college football very quickly. In the end, Texas A&M might have finally found its man and Penn State should look elsewhere for its next head coach.
Kendrick E. Johnson writes for various national outlets such as High School on SI, Yardbarker, ESPN Andscape and MMA Weekly. He is an independent print journalist, sports television reporter and multimedia journalist who has covered the NBA Finals, NFL, NCAA football, MLB, NHL, WWE and over 75 world championship boxing and UFC Fights nationally. Johnson has also covered every prep sport possible in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and all across the great state of Texas. He’s done numerous 1-on-1 interviews with some of the biggest names and personalities in sports from Kobe Bryant, Stephen Curry and Shaq on the basketball side to Jon Jones, Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford on the combat sports side and John Cena, Jey and Jimmy Uso and Charlotte Flair in WWE.
