Why Mike Elko is the frontrunner to win the SEC Coach of the Year
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After losing 4 of his last 5 games last season, quite a few people questioned if Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko was the right man to lead the boys from College Station to the promised land.
Fast forward to today, Elko has more than answered the bell as the Aggies are 6-0 for the first time since 2016 and for only the second time in the past 30 years following their win over Florida last weekend. If Elko and his Aggies can navigate an upcoming tough stretch of their schedule where they have consecutive road trips to Arkansas, LSU and Missouri, their dreams of grabbing the program’s inaugural College Football Playoff berth could become a reality in December.
As a result, here are 3 reasons the head man of Aggie Land is the current frontrunner to win the SEC Coach of the Year award this season.
1. Elko fixed A&M’s broken defense
Last season, Elko watched his Aggies give up an eye-popping 34.2 points per game in their final stretch of the season to end his first season in Aggie Land on a sour note. As a result, Elko has been way more hands-on with the defense this season and the results have been the foundation of the Aggies’ successful start.
Since blowing up and looking identical to the way it did last season in its 41-40 upset road win over Notre Dame, A&M has morphed into a new-school version of its 90s “Wrecking Crew” in SEC action. With Elko more active in defensive meetings during the week than he was last season, A&M has given up 17 points or less in its 3 SEC wins against Auburn, Mississippi State and Florida.
A big reason for A&M’s defensive success has been its domination on third down as it became the first Power 4 program in the past 20 years to hold 3 straight teams to 1 or fewer conversions on third down. If the Aggies can get their defense to travel over the next month and continue this trend, Elko’s chances of landing his first SEC Coach of The Year award will grow even higher.
2. Maximizing the transfer portal
Thanks to an up and down first season in College Station, Elko and his staff rebuilt their talented roster, which featured 28 players from the transfer portal, and made it even better by hitting the portal hard again last spring. After adding 13 through the portal to this season’s roster, A&M has morphed from a team who was a big question mark to a team viewed as a dark horse to win its first national championship since 1939.
By acquiring Cashius Howell through the portal last season and the productive receiving duo of Mario Craver and KC Concepcion this season, Elko has hit multiple bullseyes on the transfer market as the trio makes up some of the most productive players on A&M’s roster.
On offense, QB Marcel Reed has put himself in the conversation as a dark horse Heisman candidate with 1,490 passing yards and 12 touchdowns, many of which have gone to Craver and Concepcion, who have combined to grab 60 receptions for 1,081 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns. Craver has been so dominant, the Mississippi State transfer leads the SEC with 634 receiving yards and ranks third nationally while morphing into a potential early round NFL Draft pick.
On the defensive side of the ball, Howell leads the SEC with 8 sacks, which is tied for third nationally, while leading a defensive unit ranked fifth in the nation and third in the SEC in sacks. By Elko hitting on his targets in the portal, A&M’s roster has massively improved from top to bottom while giving it the foundation to potentially reach its first SEC title game.
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3. Coming up big on the biggest stages
After routinely falling flat on its face in big games last season, A&M has been able to come up big this season by making huge plays down the stretch to grab important victories over Notre Dame and Auburn.
If Elko can continue working his magic and lead the Aggies to a couple of big road wins over the next month, you can probably go ahead and hand him this year’s SEC Coach of the Year trophy.
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.
