Opportunity Knocks

"We're excited. We're excited for this week. We're excited for this opportunity." 

The wait is (almost) over for Mike Elko and the Aggies. By 6:30 p.m. Saturday night, Kyle Field will be rocking and a national television audience will be tuned in.

Some of the most challenging things about an opener, and maybe more so than usual in this matchup, are the unknowns. New systems, new personnel, new coaches…the list goes on. For Elko and his staff, it’s about adaptability and versatility. It’s been a key part of the Aggies’ preparation throughout the offseason.

“The opener is about adjustments, and what you can do, and what you can adjust on the fly to give yourself the best opportunity as the game goes on," Elko said Monday at his first weekly press conference of the season. "(You’ve got to) kind of feel how it’s going and have practiced enough and be prepared enough that you can go in the direction you need to go to be successful.”

Elko was very pleased with the preparation for this season, and the Aggies are coming off what he termed a ‘really, really good’ Fall camp. Players were focused, they were locked in and did everything with a sense of urgency. He also says they will need all of that, and then some, in a season opener of this magnitude.

“When you have an opener…that's going to be very competitive, there's not tremendous margins (for error),” Elko said. “You're going to have to come out of the tunnel opening night and execute at a really high level. You're going to have to play penalty-free football. You’re going to have to play turnover-free football. You're not going to have a lot of time to ease into this new program, these new systems that we're running. You're going to have to go out there opening night and they're going to have to be firing on all cylinders. That’s obviously the challenge we had to take on, and I think we've done it to the best of our ability.”

So how did they attack this challenge? Details. They can go a long way to determining success. That’s a message constantly preached by his program.

“Our focus is real simple,” Elko said. “We want to be able to go out and play our best football Saturday night…When you're playing a game like this, the focus has to be on all the little details, from today through Saturday, that give us the opportunity to go out Saturday night and perform like we want to.”

For Elko, focusing on details starts with what’s right in front of you, that day.

“The challenge I laid on them was go out there every day and outwork Notre Dame. You know, someone on Monday has got to prepare better than the other team. Someone on Tuesday will prepare better. Someone's going to hydrate better. Someone's going to eat better. All those little things you can do to give yourself an advantage to go out Saturday night and be successful, we have to do, because you can't overprepare. That's not something that exists. You can't be too ready for the opener. So that's the challenge.”

Perhaps a bit lost in all the hype of this game is the fact that Saturday also marks Elko’s first game as the head man here in Aggieland. Will he take a second to soak it all in? 

"There will be a moment walking down the tunnel for sure, where it hits you...kind of where you are and where you've gotten to in life," Elko said. "I think that will certainly be a little bit of a surreal feeling following the drums down the tunnel on to Kyle Field for the first time. Outside of that, you're just focused on helping these guys get the result that they want, right? It's about trying to find every angle you can, every little detail you can to pour into this game plan to give them the best chance to be successful. You really don't have a lot of time as a coach to just kind of sit back and think about those types of things. 

"It's literally just head down and go, but I'd be lying if I didn't say there will be something a little special when you're walking down the tunnel for the first time."