Texas A&M football coach Mike Elko clarified comments he made after Saturday’s 38–23 win over LSU, denying that he was taking a swipe at any former or opposing coaches.
“This is a real program,” Elko said in his postgame news conference. “It’s not fake, it’s not a politician running this program talking fast and BS’ing everybody. This is a real program and for all the recruits out there, this is a real place and if you want to be really good at football, this is a really good place to be.”
Many interpreted his remarks about running “a real program” and not being “a politician running this program talking fast and BS’ing everybody” as a swipe at former Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, who was fired last year after failing to meet expectations with a 45–25 record in six seasons.
“For anybody in the media to think that that was what I was doing post-LSU is asinine,” Elko told reporters at his Monday press conference.
Others speculated that Elko’s remarks were directed at LSU coach Brian Kelly, who briefly worked in politics before going into coaching and whose father was an elected official in Massachusetts.
Elko disputed those notions on Monday.
“It’s just comical that I actually have to do this, but it’s necessary,” Elko said. “In the postgame, I was asked to kind of give a synopsis on how we sell culture to our program. In doing so, I made a statement that seemed like a very benign statement, that somehow managed to be taken as a shot directly at people.
“You guys gave me multiple opportunities in nine months to take shots at people, and I’ve never done it. I have nothing but respect for Coach Fisher. I’ve said nothing but positive things about Coach Fisher. I’m the head coach at Texas A&M because of Coach Fisher. I appreciate who he is, everything that he’s done.”
Elko was Kelly’s defensive coordinator at Notre Dame in 2017 and worked in the same capacity under Fisher from 2018-21 at Texas A&M before becoming the head coach at Duke.
Infamously, Fisher was dismissed despite being owed $75 million and having eight years remaining on the 10-year contract he and the school agreed to in 2021.
With the victory, Texas A&M (7–1 overall) holds first place in the SEC with a 5–0 record, the only undefeated team in conference play. The Aggies moved up from No. 14 to No. 10 in this week’s AP Top 25. LSU dropped from No. 8 to No. 16 and is tied for third in the SEC at 3–1.
