COLLEGE STATION - Texas A&M head football coach Mike Elko met with the media on Monday in his first weekly press conference of the season. Texas A&M is preparing to host Missouri State on Saturday night at Kyle Field (6 p.m., ESPN) and you can watch the presser below.
Below is a transcript from Elko's press conference at the Kyle Field Media Center:
Mike Elko, Texas A&M Head Football Coach
(Ref: Opening Statement)
“Let’s just start with things going on in and around the program. I’m excited for the R.C. Slocum statue reveal, that will be Friday at 2 o'clock. It’s an unbelievable accomplishment for a guy who is the winningest head football coach in Texas A&M history. He won six Southwest Conference Championships, 2 Big 12 South Conference Championships and really a guy who kind of epitomizes what being an elite coach here at Texas A&M is all about. Hopefully we will get a lot of people out for that, that's a cool moment and that will be a cool day for him. I want to say congratulations to the 32 Aggies who made football rosters yesterday. That includes a few guys on IR and the PUP list, but we have 32 guys currently listed on NFL rosters so what a great accomplishment for those guys yesterday. Then from our perspective, it's finally game week. We get to stop talking about what things can be, what things can be about, and we get to run out of the tunnel and go play somebody else. Our kids are really excited and fired up for it. It’s an opportunity to take on a Missouri State team who recently made the jump to Conference USA and is one of the hotter athletic departments in the country when you look at some of the things they accomplished last year. Football being a bowl team in their first year in Division I, the women's basketball team making and advancing in the NCAA tournament and the baseball team qualifying for the NCAA tournament as an at large. I just think that this is a program that's really on the rise. They went out this offseason and hired a new head coach, Casey Woods, who was the offensive coordinator at SMU last season. He’s a guy who was well renowned as an offensive strategist, a young guy who has been really hot on the OC market in the last few years, so it's an exciting program. It's an exciting team to get a chance to go out and compete against and we're really looking forward to it. I think when you talk about personnel, we've talked a lot about how openers sometimes are very challenging. I think when you're playing a new staff it makes it even more challenging. I think the amount of film that we're watching in terms of teams you’re watching UTEP, SMU, TCU, Tulane, Auburn to try to get schematic. Then that's to say nothing about all the players that you're having to watch in the different places that they come from. We are trying to do the best job that we can piecing it all together and trying to figure it all out. Like a lot of openers, it's going to be about ourselves and getting ourselves ready to go out and play our best football to the best we can.”
(Ref: On breaking the season into segments)
“I think I always function in quarters. We talk about how you have the first quarter, your first three games, then you've got that middle stretch and then you have the fourth quarter which is the last three games. Right now, I think it's really just about focusing on us going out there and seeing what we are, seeing what we're capable of, doing it together as a team for the first time in a live setting and then figuring out where the adjustments need to come and what we need to do to become the best team we're capable of being.”
(Ref: On what the offensive guard group will look like)
“I think we're getting closer to knowing what it'll look like. It's been a very competitive battle which has been good for us. It's been good to see some of the young guys in our program really elevate and then to see some of the new guys who have come into the program being forced to elevate to win jobs. I still believe it's played out like we hoped it would. You have a really strong competition where at the end of the day, whoever runs out there for the first snap, there's going to be a lot of guys that get an opportunity to go out there and play both inside, guard and center and then outside at tackle as well. I think we're getting a little bit closer to knowing who the group will be that starts, but the reality is that we're still searching to figure out who the best five are and what that will look like since you don't know until you get into those live game settings what it's going to look like together.”
(Ref: On having a rotation of players on the offensive line for Week 1)
“Yeah, and I'm not saying because we're trying to figure it out, I just think that's who we've been. Last year, when we had a lot of returning starters and nobody was unsure about who the starters were, we still went into this opening segment knowing we were going to rotate guys in and I just think that's important. I think the more guys that you have involved, the more guys that you believe can help you win, the better that is for everything. It's better for morale, it's better for lasting 12 games, it's better for development. It's just better in every way, shape and form when you have enough guys that can go out there and rotate and help. The challenge is, making sure that you have enough guys that the level doesn't drop and that they're capable of playing to the standard they need to play at. I think that's what the competition has shown and now we got to go out in a game setting and show that we can play at that level.”
(Ref: On the availability of Daymion Sanford)
“Right now, yes. It’s probably still a little bit of a game time decision, but if you were to ask me right now, yes I anticipate him being out there.”
(Ref: On characteristics of this group that could take a step forward)
“That’s a hard question to answer until you get out there and play. I don't know that you see things until you go out and you play for real. We've elevated ourselves to be a team that has made the playoff, has competed to go to the SEC championship and has finished in the top 10. I think whether this team can do that, I don’t know, we will find out when we start playing people for real.”
(Ref: On the depth chart regarding the kickers)
“I just think he’s [David Olano] a really good kicker. He was hurt in the spring and so he didn't really get to kick much. Asher got his opportunity and really did a nice job, which then that created a competition. Not because David didn't do anything, but because you had this other guy step up all spring. They went back and forth, and it was very close and very tight. It was tight because both guys were phenomenal. I think we have a really strong kicking situation, and we just decided to go with the guy who maybe has done it a little bit more at the college level at this point, but both are really good this fall.”
(Ref: On how much he can learn from his team during Week 1)
“I think we want to go out and we want to see where we are and knowing that what we're going to be is going to be way better than that each week we go out there. I feel like sometimes in openers, everyone's trying to identify like ‘is this team going to be good enough?’ I know we're good enough to compete, I know we have enough talent to be in this thing and I know we're going to have an opportunity. What we have to do is be a team that focuses on what is important to play winning football and then that grows week to week. want to go out there, I want to play somebody and then I want to see where we're at. From there, it's going to be really important wherever that is that we grow coming out of it. To me that’s what makes really good football teams over the course of the season. I'm not sitting here on this podium saying, ‘I need to see this or we're in trouble.’ That's not really how we work as coaches.”
(Ref: On navigating the hot weather through the season)
“Run into it. I think anybody who saw the video that came out last night saw that we don't sidestep it. We had all three of our scrimmages or Saturday practices and we had one weekend practice every week that was at kickoff time in the stadium in the heat and it is what it is. We're really intelligent about load management and how we do all that stuff to make sure that everybody is safe and protected. I don't think you can hide from it. We’ve got two kickoffs that are going to be right in the middle of the Texas heat in September. We’ve got an opener that's going to be at six o'clock and it's pretty hot at 6 o'clock in Texas in September. It is what it is and we just got to go play.”
(Ref: On the impact of David Olano)
“We had a veteran last year so hopefully what it means is consistency when he goes out there. You don't make a lot of statements on a podium, we got to go do it on a field. We're excited for David and we believe in him, but he's got to go out there and he's got to do it.”
(Ref: On Missouri State’s offense)
“They've got a really talented quarterback that came over from UTEP that started seven games who's got the ability to hurt you with his arms and with his legs. He came with the offensive coordinator, so he's going to be familiar with the offensive style and what they're trying to do. They've got a slot receiver who is their leading receiver from last year who's really talented. They got a big, tall, athletic tight end who will be a matchup issue in the passing game. I think that's what you know and then from there, it's a lot of transfers and trying to piece together who's going to go out there, what they're going to look like in the new system in a new program.”
(Ref: On having certain people playing alongside one another on the field)
“I think we moved guys around a lot positionally and everybody wanted to know when we were going to slot guys into their right spot. At the end of the day there's a comfort level when you've played with the guy next to you for a long time but college football has so much turnover it always has that I don't know that that is our world. I think that's the NFL world where the right guard and the right tackle have played together for eight years and they've grown together and they know each other. In our world, you never get more than two years maximum of the same guys playing next to each other anyway. I think we've had to learn how to adapt to putting together o-lines that can play cohesively together without all that knowledge and experience. Experience helps for sure and you'd rather do it with older guys than younger guys, but you also have some younger guys that are really talented. They're going to have to be able to get out there and be able to do it as cohesively as the older guys. I think for us, it's just more about operation and functionality than it is the cohesive part of it to be honest.”
(Ref: On the progress and growth of Marcel Reed)
“At the end of the day what Marcel has to do is go out there and play consistently on Saturdays. So the real answer to that is since the end of last season, I haven't seen him do anything because we haven't played a game. He works really hard, he's gotten better, he's got a better command of the offense. But he's got to go out and we've got to play. The reality of this thing is that we've done what we've had to do to get to this point, now it's time to go play. When we go play, we'll figure out where we are.”
(Ref: On Julio Humphrey’s improvement this offseason)
“I think he has a tremendous work ethic. He's been really consistent all through spring, summer and all throughout fall camp. I think he's gotten more confident playing the ball. I think one of the things he struggled with at times last year was the final decision on the ball. He would get antsy and then that gets grabby and you start grabbing receivers and doing things that you don't need to do to be effective. I think he's just gotten a lot more comfortable and confident with what we're asking of him and I think that's shown through and you he’s been a warrior. He hasn't missed a single practice since last season ended, and I think he’s really grown and developed and so we're excited to get him out there.”
(Ref: On the linebacker group as a whole)
“I just think they made a really big jump and some of that was naturally expected because you had some younger new guys, Ray Coney and Tamarion Watkins taking a lot of reps in the spring in a new system and all of that. I just think the overall growth and development of the group really sticks out. I think Ray has had a really strong summer and a really strong fall camp. I think Noah Mikhail has taken a really big jump forward. We're really happy with what Jordan Lockhart has done and how he has played. Then Watkins has really evolved from the time he got here to where he is now. I just think there's been a lot of growth in that room and it’s been cool to see.”
(Ref: On his relationship with RC Slocum)
“To me, I just view him as a legend and I think that's how I've always seen him. I appreciate what he means to this community and I appreciate what he means to this football program. As a defensive coordinator here, that was obviously a guy that you had always looked up to and watched because he did it at an elite level for so long as a defensive coordinator and then as a head coach. So we’ve had conversations, nothing in tremendous depth, because the schedules don't really allow us a ton of time to sit down and hang out together but just a ton of mutual respect and admiration for who he is. Coming back as a head coach I wanted to make sure that he's always welcomed around. That he knows that this is his home, that if he wants to be around for practice, or the program, whatever it is that he always has a place here because he means so much to this university.”
(Ref: On the defense heading into Missouri State)
“We'll see. That'll be the words I'll use for everything, we'll see. I think we have a chance to be really good if we have the ability to go out and focus and play with the level of urgency that we need to. I think they have a very high ceiling but they've got to go out and they've got to go out and do it.”
(Ref: On the ascending of Missouri State becoming an FBS program)
“They were a bowl team last year in their first season and they won seven games. They’re making tremendous investments into their program. They hired an elite coach and they're recruiting at a really high level for their conference. I think they're definitely here for a long haul.”
(Ref: On the new offseason format)
“There’s probably not a ton in terms of what we'll do differently. I don't envision massive changes. As we were going through a lot of the conversations talking about those new calendars, I don't have a desire to move spring ball. I think spring ball is in a good place for our training calendar. We get a good solid eight weeks before it, we get a good solid eight weeks after it. That to me is really important for the development of your team. Where we figure out how to introduce those other six practices that we now have, that's probably going to require a little bit more research and conversation and try to manage that in conjunction with losing three in training camp and just kind of how that all pieces together. I think when you talk about it holistically, the big picture of our calendar, I don't envision a ton of changes.”
(Ref: On what this team has revealed in the offseason)
“We want our program to be about a couple things. We want to be a gritty team. We want to be a team that knows how to go out there and perform when needed and has unbelievable mental toughness and resolve. We want to be a team that has tremendous pride in how we represent this university and each other and that shows through the effort and strain that we play with. We want to be an extremely physical football team on both sides of the ball and on both sides of the line of scrimmage. I think that has been our identity and this team has shown the ability to do that. Now we got to go do it on Saturdays.”