Aggies Meet Media at Bye Week Press Conference
Nov 04, 2024 | Football
Texas A&M coach Mike Elko, along with coordinators Jay Bateman and Collin Klein, met with the media on Monday at the Aggies' press conference heading into their second and final bye week of the season.
Quotables: Mike Elko
OPENING COMMENT:
Thanks for coming out. Not really too many ways to sugarcoat it. We played a really bad game. I coached a really bad game. We played a really bad game. And that's just something that we're going to have to own. Defensively, it starts with me. We had a poor plan. We had poor answers. Run defense wasn't what it needed to be. There was too many missed assignments, too many perimeter edge issues with getting our perimeter fits the right way. And then in the pass game, I thought we had too many busts in the fourth quarter. Offensively, starts with me. We had a poor plan. We didn't do the things that we needed to do to be successful. We were awful in short yardage. And then I thought we had too many negative plays, whether it was botched handoffs, botched exchanges, things that hadn't really been part of our plan at all that showed up that just set some drives back. We didn't do the things that we needed to do. And so, it's where we're at, and now we got to move forward, and that's all you can do. And so you address it, you own it, and then you realize that everything that you ever wanted in this season is still right in front of you. And so you've got to take advantage of the bye week. You've got to go out and you've got to get better and you've got to put yourself in position to play good football three straight Saturdays, starting with New Mexico State. And if we can do that, everything we want is still right in front of us. And so, that's where we're at as a program. And I think that's where our kids are. And I'm pretty confident in how we'll respond and how we'll bounce back down the stretch.
And then on the injury front, just so you guys are aware, Le'Veon (Moss) will be out for the year. So that'll be something we'll deal with. No news on anybody else.
WITH LE'VEON OUT, ARE YOU GUYS CONSIDERING MOVING ANYBODY ELSE TO THE RUNNING BACK POSITION TO PROVIDE SOME DEPTH?
I think we'll try to look at everything on the table. I think we'll try to figure out what the right solution is for us. Obviously, we're confident in Amari (Daniels) and his ability to go back there. EJ (Smith) will provide the primary backup. But I think at this point everything is on the table.
OBVIOUSLY YOU DON'T WANT TO LOSE, BUT COULD THIS ACTUALLY BE TO YOUR COACHING STAFF AND YOUR PLAYERS ADVANTAGE THAT THIS HAPPENED AT THIS POINT WITH EVERYTHING STILL IN FRONT OF YOU?
It's part of me that probably wants to say yes, but no. I mean, I hate losing, I want a program that hates losing. I want a program that knows how to respond to losing for sure. And that's a big piece of it, learning how to respond. But we've got to get to a point around here where--and this is what I said to the guys in the locker room postgame--where we can fix problems through victory. You don't want to be the program that has to lose to then be able to identify all of the issues that are growing to then fix them. And I think maybe to some degree that got us on Saturday. Some of the things that we've been trying to get corrected, corrected, corrected that we couldn't and didn't do a good enough job at, and they bite you and then you lose. And so certainly at that point you get the kids attention a lot more. But we want to grow to be a program that doesn't have to do that. I'd prefer to keep winning.
HEADING INTO THAT SOUTH CAROLINA GAME IT SEEMED LIKE YOU WERE REALLY TRYING TO PREPARE THE TEAM FOR A TOUGH TEST OUT THERE. IS IT DISAPPOINTING NOT EXECUTING IN THE WAY THAT YOU THOUGHT, AT LEAST GAME PLANNING FOR THAT? AND HOW DO YOU THINK THE TEAM KIND OF RALLIES AROUND THAT CHALLENGE NOW?
Yeah. I mean, it's disappointing that we played the way we did. I gotta own that. It's not I did do a great job, and they did a poor job. Obviously, I didn't do a good enough job of getting them to understand that. There was nothing about that game that was what anybody was talking about. That was a team that had LSU...I mean, they jumped all over LSU and then the starting quarterback got hurt and LSU rallies and then they still did enough to win the game. You know? So when we were watching the tape of South Carolina, we weren't watching a game that we just had to play...we knew we were going to have to go in there and take it from them. And so I think that's probably more the rhetoric I was talking about. But all of that is for naught because it didn't get done and it didn't get done the way it needed to. And so how do I think we'll respond? I think we're going to respond really well. I think we're built to respond to these things because of what we do, how we do things, how we talk about things. So that's now where we're at. We've got to go back to work and we've got to make the improvements that need to be made for us to not have that happen again.
ALL COACHES GO FOR IT MORE NOW ON FOURTH DOWN. IN YOUR THREE YEARS, DO YOU FEEL YOU'RE MORE OF A GAMBLER NOW? AND WHAT ABOUT COLLIN, YOU GUYS WANT TO GO FOR IT MORE? HOW'S THAT WORK?
So here's the reality. The reality is I graded out about 50% on going for it when I should have, according to the analytics. There were three other analytics opportunities that we should have gone for it that we didn't. The three that we went for were all obvious 'Gos'. The thing that differentiated those--the fourth downs in our own territory--if those were 4th and 1, I don't think we would have. Both of those were fourth and half, a quarter. Like those weren't we've got to move the ball forward far, those were we've just got to move the ball forward. And I believe we should be able to do that. Now what you question all the time is the calls, right? I've said this all the time as the head coach. You have to make your decisions and you've got to trust them and you've got to trust your process so that you don't ever...you don't want to get hesitant and gun shy. You want to play to win and do the things that you think are right to win. What eats you alive as a coach is always the play call, right? Could we have called a different play? Could we have done something different? Those to me are the things that eat me alive, when those things don't go the way you want them to go. I still believe that we should be a program that can get half a yard. We have to find better ways to do it. That'll be the self evaluation for me.
