Elko, Aggies Welcome Early Signing Class
Dec 20, 2023 | Football
New Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko welcomed the first pieces of his inaugural class as the Aggies inked 14 student-athletes during the early signing period. You can watch Wednesday's press conference or read quotes below.
2024 Signing Class
(as of December 22, 2023)
* indicates signed Friday 12/22
| Signee | Pos. | Ht. | Wt. | Hometown (High School) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Papa Ahfua | OL | 6-4 | 285 | Seattle, Wash. (O'Dea) |
| Ernest Campbell | WR | 5-9 | 145 | Refugio, Texas (Refugio) |
| Myles Davis | DB | 6-2 | 200 | Converse, Texas (Judson) |
| Dealyn Evans* | DL | 6-5 | 270 | Longview, Texas (Pine Tree) |
| Ashton Funk | OL | 6-7 | 305 | Katy, Texas (Tompkins) |
| Blake Ivy | OL | 6-4 | 295 | League City, Texas (Clear Springs) |
| Kendall Jackson | DL | 6-4 | 260 | Gainesville, Fla. (Buchholz) |
| Tristan Jernigan* | LB | 6-1 | 220 | Tupelo, MS (Tupelo) |
| Eric Karner | TE | 6-5 | 225 | Elmhurst, Ill. (Immaculate Conception) |
| Jordan Lockhart | LB | 6-1 | 225 | Redlands, Calif. (St. John Bosco) |
| Miles O'Neill | QB | 6-5 | 230 | Marblehead, Mass. (The Hun School) |
| Jordan Pride | DB | 6-2 | 185 | Blountstown, Fla. (Blountstown) |
| Izaiah Williams | WR | 6-0 | 172 | Tampa, Fla. (Carrollwood Day) |
| Solomon Williams | DL | 6-3 | 250 | Tampa, Fla. (Carrollwood Day) |
Mike Elko National Signing Day Press Conference
Thank you. All right. Well, I've never been so glued to an Instagram live stream in my life, so I apologize for being a couple of minutes late. Obviously, today is a really exciting day. I think any time you look around the country, what you see is a lot of kids fulfilling lifelong dreams. And that's kind of what I go to. Every kid that I talked to today is today's a celebration and it's a celebration of a lot of hard work for these young men from start to finish in their career. All the people that help them along their journey to ultimately fulfill their dream of signing a national letter of intent. And that's really for every kid around the country and in particular for the kids that signed today.
With us on our end, today is the end of basically a cycle that started about two and a half years ago. And the amount of work that goes into today behind the scenes for an extremely long period of time to ultimately end with signing class and the next generation of Aggies is really special. A couple of thank you's that I just want to give out to some people here at Texas A&M. First of all, to Brian LaCivita in recruiting. He kind of runs our recruiting operations. He's the point man for everything we do from a scouting standpoint and him and his team of personnel and students certainly played a large role in identifying this class long before I ever got here. To Karli Stewart, who is the Director of On Campus Recruiting, and her team and her team of students for everything that they do, putting together the weekends, the events. Some of these kids have visited us seven, eight, nine times during recruiting and to continue to find creative ways to entertain them as they come and their families. They play a huge role in this. To some special people on campus, to Molly Tye, to Jamie Wood, to Kratik Malhotra, to Amanda Hernandez, to all the different other people, faculty, staff who come out and sacrifice tons of weekend Saturdays to be with these student athletes, to be with these families, I think there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into this thing to ultimately get this thing where it needs to go. And so I’m extremely appreciative for all the hard work of everybody. And then to the staff of people here at Texas A&M who are truly being professional. I think this is an extremely hard time for everybody. There's a lot of transition, there's a lot of comings and goings. And I think old staff, new staff coming together to try to do what's best for Texas A&M with this class and try to keep this class together as best we could.
To recap the class, I think when you get hired 18 days before signing day, I'm not sure that you can even imagine what this is like to try to build relationships with people that you've never met, to try to convince people that we're the right staff, that I'm the right man, that we're the right people, that they still want to send their son to play for. I think everybody understands what Texas A&M is all about, but relationships are a huge part of recruiting and they always will be. And so we had to hustle. And we have been hustling nonstop since we got here, and we have gotten in front of as many people as we possibly can. We've talked, we face time, we've zoomed, we've done everything we possibly could to make this group as comfortable and confident as we could in the direction we were going. The group that we put together is really about quality and not quantity. And I think when you're a new coach and a new staff, you have to make some serious decisions. And I think you can do a lot of things in your first 18 days that can really set your program back for a long time. You can compromise values, you can go out and chase things that can make a splash. But at the end of the day, those things don't have long-term value. And what we wanted to focus on was quality. And we wanted to make sure that the young men that we added to this program represented the direction we want Texas A&M football to go. And in that end, we did a phenomenal job. We were able to add, I’ve got to recount this now because we just added, 11…because I think we're still waiting on one. So 11 quality individuals with maybe a couple more still hanging out there that we hopefully will add to this group before it's all over. We were able to add some position diversity, which we were really excited about. I think we had some geographic diversity, which is always going to be a big piece of how you recruit on this national stage nowadays. It will always start in Texas. Texas will always be primary, but we're going to have to have the ability to get out and identify prospects all over this country if we want to continue to elevate our brand and to help us grow.
To touch briefly kind of on the signing class and go through it quickly just with a couple highlights, on offense, quarterback Miles O'Neill from The Hun School in New Jersey, originally from Marblehead, Massachusetts. The Hun School is a school I'm very familiar with. I grew up 10 minutes down the road from there, so this one was interesting. Really talented quarterback, extremely productive. He threw for over 4,000 yards and 42 touchdowns as a senior. Big arm kid and has a really great presence about him and so really excited that he'll be the quarterback of the class. We were able to add three offensive linemen and I think really we were able to hit everything we would look for in terms of the diversity of an offensive line. Papa Ahfua from O’Day high school in Seattle, Washington. He's our inside guy, a big road-grading guard that can really get underneath people and move people. Ashton Funk from Tompkins High School in Katy, Texas. He's your prototypical tackle really. Really has a phenomenal fundamental grasp of the game of football that jumps off when you watch the tape. Really talented kid, has great length, been extremely well-trained down there. And then Blake Ivy from Clear Springs High School from League City, Texas, is just a phenomenal athlete, extremely long, extremely athletic. I saw him do some things on video from a Rivals camp where he had his knees bent and was putting his 6-8 frame down around the ground. And it was extremely impressive. At tight end, we were able to add Eric Karner from Immaculate Conception High School in Elmhurst, Illinois. Great frame for what we want to do now moving forward on offense. He's a dual-threat tight end. We think he has the ability to be an in-line blocker but can also help us in the passing game and can create separation, get open at wide receiver. We were able to add Ernest Campbell from Refugio High School right here in Refugio, Texas, slot receiver with a lead track speed. He's a 10.10 100-meter kid can flat out fly and had an extremely productive high school career. About 10 minutes ago now I guess we added Izaiah Williams from Carrollwood Day School in Tampa, Florida, a big time late addition for us. That was a huge one to get. We think he has elite twitch, elite burst and can really be a day-one impact guy for us at wide receiver, and so really happy that we were able to get that one done.
On the defensive side of the ball we have four in and a couple more out there that we're still hoping to get in and are still fighting for. On the defensive line, Kendall Jackson from Buchholz High School in Gainesville, Florida. He was a late addition. He was a guy that our defensive line coach, Sean Spencer, had recruited all the way through the process and kind of got on board with us, you know, almost under the radar a little bit. And so really excited to add him. He's a big, powerful kid on the edge. He has pass rush ability and he just fits really well into what we want to be about moving forward. At linebacker, Jordan Lockhart from St. John Bosco High School out of Redlands, California. He's an extremely productive sideline to sideline backer, can really run. He’s got a lot of addition he can add in the pass rush on third down, and so really excited to bring him into the fold. And then two safeties that we were able to add, Myles Davis from Judson High School in Converse, Texas, a big hitter, your prototypical strong safety, he can cover. He's got range, he's got good hands, but really physical in how he plays the run and how he delivers blows in the tackling area. And then Jordan Pride from Blountstown High School in Blountstown, Florida. He's a two-way player and plays defensive back and wide receiver. Again, he's your prototypical free safety, very rangy, very athletic, tremendous ball skills and so excited to add those guys.
And so again, the moral of this story is really quality. And I think we were able to really a lot of real quality additions to this class. Between now and Friday, hopefully we're able to add a couple more to it and we'll get those guys to you as we can. And so from there I kind of open it up to questions.
Mike, how do you anticipate the remainder of your class taking shape, considering the portal still open and, you know, allocating scholarships either way?
Yeah, I think obviously, you know, in this day and age, the portal is critical. I think there's obviously going to be a handful of kids that are going to be out there and still looking to sign in February. And if there's kids that that we think add value, we're certainly going to go aggressively after every single one of those. You know, the portal window is open and will continue to be open. And so we're going to look to be very aggressive. We already have been to some degree and will continue to be so, and, you know, just try to build this roster as best we can with quality additions.
And how difficult have these last three weeks been with all the moving parts? Have you slept at all? What was your day like?
As you could probably see in my face, I haven't slept at all. The term used to be you're drinking out of a firehose when you take a new head coaching job. I don't know if there's a term that actually applies to this. You know, when you step into this with basically active free agency going on in your own roster every day and having to put all of those fires out consistently every day, trying to keep our kids happy, and here trying to identify the ‘24 class, make relationships and build all of that, try to identify who's going in the portal and who fits, that's going in the portal and recruiting all of that. And, by the way, trying to fill out some people so that you're not doing all of that by yourself. So yeah, it's a challenge to say the least, but certainly a challenge that that we jumped into as best we could.
18 days on the job before Signing Day, so what do you tell maybe a player who's been committed to Texas A&M, for instance, a Miles O'Neill for instance? What do you tell him in that short amount of time to try to keep him on board?
Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing is Texas A&M has been here for a long time. And part of the reason why you commit to this place is what this university stands for and what it represents both on and off the field. And I think that has stood the test of time throughout coaches. And then I think from a coaching perspective, we just talk about we are going to run an elite football program and we are going to develop young men on and off the field. We're going to build champions in every aspect of their life and this is going to be the best football program in the country. And I think everybody that walks around here sees the potential. And the message that we've sent to everybody is, is this staff is going to bring the potential to reality. And that's what we're here for.
You mentioned that drinking out of a fire hose aspect. Would you like to see the calendar switched up move changed in the future to where you don't have so much going on all at the same time?
Yeah, it's interesting. Yes. But I don't know how, you know? I just I don't know that there's a lot of really good solutions because there's an academic calendar that still rules all of this, right? And so by January 17th, kids have to know where they're going. And so I don't know where you slide the portal window. I don't know what you would do with the bowl games. Like, I don't know that there's really a solution to the college football model. I think at some point we're going to have to come up with some type of governance that this is got to have some access to roster management and how we're doing this, that it's not open roster moves every single day from the end of the season until January. But it is what it is right now. I don't know how you would slide though, because you still have to hire coaches. You still have to do all of that stuff. Bowl games still have to be played, and all of that has to happen before the spring semester starts. So it just kind of is what it is with the academic calendar.
One away from signing day…could you speak to what attracted you to Tommy Moffitt as the strength coach?
When you talk about Tommy Moffitt, you talk about a true legend in the strength industry. And you know what he did over three different head football coaches at LSU and winning three national championships, and the amount of first round draft picks that he developed, and the culture that he was able to build over in Louisiana at LSU for a really long time. And then when I talked to him, just an unbelievable energy and hunger to get back and do it again. And I think that was the thing that really struck me different was, you know, here's a guy who has done it really well for a really long time, but he's new age in his thinking. He's talking about sports science and how to integrate that into his program. And he sounds like a 25-year-old trying to get his first job. And when I heard that on the phone, I was kind of like, whoa, this is this is the route I want to go with this.
Coach, when you look at guys such as Kendall Jackson, when you look at Izaiah Williams, when you're going out trying to flip them to come to the university, is it a little different of a pathway to when it comes to selling kids to continue to stay? Or is it the same kind of emotion and deciding factors?
No, I think it's the same kind of thing. I think, obviously, when you're trying to flip somebody, there's so much information that you're trying to pour into somebody because they've been thinking one way for a really long time and haven't really thought the other way, right? And so you've got a very short period of time to get them a lot of information as to why this is a better place for their future. Whereas with a kid who's been committed for a long time, it's trying to just relax his mind and convince him that you made this decision when everything was calm, when everything was slow. This is where you want it to be. We're going to make it the same program you committed to and even try to enhance it.
And then is there a kind of a balancing act when it comes to the second wave, when you're trying to add in those last pieces of a recruiting trail versus maybe bringing in a veteran on the transfer portal and offering them a scholarship?
Yeah, I think I think everything's on the table, right? I think you're trying to evaluate short term, long term all at the same time, even though I don't even know that high school kids give you long term anymore with the transfer portal. But you're trying to make sure that you don't get into a situation where you add too many back-end guys out of the portal that you’re roster deficient again next year. But you also can't add too many young guys because you won't have the depth and the experience you need to be successful this fall. And so I think everything you're just kind of weighing through, you know, instant impact versus long term impact. And what ultimately do you think is the right decision for the big picture of the program and the short term at the same time.
So you were able to get guys from California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Florida. But one of the first things you did when you got here was talk to the Texas high school coaches, talk about how important it was that to have that be your foundation here at A&M.
Yeah, I mean, recruiting has to start inside out. And I don't think there's any doubt about the fact that there's more NFL players that get drafted that are from the state of Texas every single year. There's more Division I signees from the state of Texas than there is any other state, every single year. This is our home base. And any time that you are starting to build relationships and build the foundation of your program, you have to start with home base. And the unique thing about recruiting this day and age is high school coaches get up at seven in the morning. The kids we're recruiting usually don't get up until or get available till about two, right? So you have the ability to kind of work all morning on high school kids in the future and 2025 class and all of those things. And then when the kids are trying to sign for 2024 or the portal, kids actually wake up because some of them are in college, you can focus your attention on that. And at that point, the high school guys go home and you can switch gears. And so I think it times itself up really well to be able to do both. But it has to be inside out in how we recruit. That's just a critical piece of being a college program in this state.
Hey, Coach, two questions for you. With it being just 18 days on the job, is this how you would like your recruiting class to look or are you going to have to go more transfer portal to kind of fill out those numbers?
When you say how I would like it to look, I'm assuming you're saying the shortage of numbers?
Yes.
Yeah, no, I think obviously, as we move forward into 2025 and beyond, I think this is a short number class for sure. What we didn't want to do is just add guys for the sake of adding guys, because I don't think that that produces long term results. And so we'll probably be a little bit more portal heavy this year than we would we would want to be in any normal year. But, you know, again, I think it's the balance of the two that you're always seeking.
And then while you're also trying to put this class together, also building your coaching staff, how challenging is it? Talking to kids and also adults.
I've said this honestly to a lot of recruits as I've gone through this, I think recruiting coaches might be harder than recruiting kids. I think as much as we get upset with 17- and 18-year-olds for changing their mind, we understand it because they're 17 and 18. Sometimes when you're talking to 45-year-olds, you're looking for a little bit more stability and you don't always get it. But no, I think it's all part of it, right? We've got to be able to build a staff that can take us where we want to go. And I think that's a lot further along internally than it is to the public eye right now. I think we've got a lot of guys that are tied up in bowl games and other commitments that we certainly anticipate joining us as soon as they're bowl games are done. And so I think there's a much bigger staff together right now than maybe the public can see. And I think that'll become clear as we move through the next week and a half or so.
I heard you mentioned Ernest Campbell earlier. It seems like a real exciting prospect. I know he's got some stuff you can't coach. A little smaller, though, but how do you kind of envision sort of a development for him and carving out a role to make him kind of a special player?
Yeah, I think the first thing is we’ve got to get him in the weight room and we’ve got to get a little bit of weight on him and a little bit of strength on him without losing the speed. And if we can do that, then you've got a kid that can run 10.2 100 meters and that circles defenses and that's an explosive playmaker. And so you try to get him the ball in space as much as you possibly can and let him utilize his speed.
And then just in terms of your overall schedule, like you mentioned, I know you’ve got your hands full as is, but what's been kind of your approach, especially with the bowl game coming up in terms of being around the practices? I know Elijah's kind of coaching the guys, but especially next week kind of being around the team. How are you kind of going about all that?
I think this week we've tried to get out to practice as much as we could and been around to support them. I wasn't able to get out today for for obvious reasons, today being what it was. But you know, the last couple of days we've been out of practice and, you know, we'll do that the next few days as well. And then I think when the team travels to Houston, I think we'll kind of let them go and do that trip on their own and kind of get themselves ready to play the game and then certainly show up Wednesday night with the family to support the team and be there for them. Kind of let that be the final chapter in last season and then come out of that game and move forward into getting this thing ready to go over what we wanted to look like for next year.
How is your defensive coordinator search going? What have you been telling defensive recruits, who, what they can expect?
Obviously, I think everybody's pretty well versed in schematically it's going to look like a Mike Elko defense. I think everybody has a pretty good pulse and feel for what that looks like. I don't think there's been any problem in terms of selling the defense. I think obviously trying to find a linebackers coach, which is probably where the coordinator role comes from, that's probably been the bigger challenge if there's been any challenge with it. But again, I think that'll come to light here probably in the next 24, 48 hours and I feel good about where that's going to go.
And then where would you kind of assess where A&M is at from an NIL standpoint and how much has it been a benefit so far? I know you can't exactly be involved in it, but just from what you've seen and heard with.
Yeah, I mean, listen, NIL is here and it's not going anywhere. And, you know, we have tremendous support and tremendous resources behind this program. And I think as you move forward and you try to get that group moving in a good direction and kind of help facilitate some of that stuff so it moves in the way that you'd like to see it move. I think all of that stuff helps. But obviously that's something that goes on behind the scenes and doesn't impact recruiting in the way a lot of people think it does. I think a lot of people think it plays an enormous role, and I don't know that it's quite as big as everyone thinks it is.
When you look at this class, it's not just diverse in terms of location, but also versatile when it comes to positions, guys playing two ways, playing more positions. Do you like that for players knowing that they can fill different gaps if need be?
I don't know that it's necessarily filling different gaps, but I do think you get more complete players, like especially you just look at the defensive backs. If you find defensive backs who are returners, who play on offense a little bit, who played on offense at some point in their career, who are basketball kids or track kids like the multiple sports that they play, the multiple positions they play creates a little bit of diversity in their game, and I think that always yields to a better athlete, which to me yields to a better football player. I think when you recruit a kid, generally speaking, you have a pretty pinpoint idea of how he's going to fit, you know, And then if it doesn't work out, you try to see if there's another avenue. But I don't know that it's necessarily for multiple positions here. But I do think you feel better about recruiting kids that do a lot of different things on the field because there is versatility in their athleticism.
Are there any position groups of emphasis that were an emphasis coming in to today and if there's any that still remain as you go forward?
I think all of them, to be honest with you. I think we've got to add value and depth at every position across the roster. And so I don't know that you look at one thing and say, our roster’s weak here. But I do think that there's areas across the board where we can add value and add guys that can come in and be pieces for us as we want to build out our roster for next year and to build out a roster that can go out and compete at a really high level. And so I think we're attacking pretty much every position right now to try to figure out how we can get better.
And I don't think we've got actually gotten to ask you about Collin Klein either, that hire. What was it about him and his system that attracted you and was able to sell to some of these recruits?
That obviously I think was the priority hire because that's the one that everybody wants to know. What will the offense look like and what will the scheme look like? And we’d have had a heck of a time trying to recruit without that position. And so, yeah, I kind of locked myself in my office and you go through names that that you think make sense and you have some names that you think fit and then you really just dive into like, what does this offense look like? How do they sequence plays, How do they play call, how does it evolve game to game? That's a process that to me you can't play around with. And I don't really take anyone's word for that at all. That's something I just dive into myself. I did the same thing when I got to Duke and so, you know, kind of going through about eight coordinators to get it down to two to three to really do some deep zooms and talk to people and ultimately just settled with Collin on a couple of things. One, he's extremely bright, like extremely bright. And I think the way he can teach our young men how to execute on offense really kind of took me real quick. And then I think diversity in how he attacks people. I think if you watch his offense from this year versus last year, it's completely different based on his personnel, what they emphasize inside, obviously a completely different scheme, but it's completely different in terms of how they're emphasizing different players. I like how he mixes up tempos, I like how he mixes up personnels, and then he's a great person. And that's the final piece of this is making sure that we add great people into this building. And his family was down here for the first recruiting weekend. I just think we've added great people to the Texas A&M community, and that's really important, too.
Appreciate you guys. Thank you.
