Texas A&M Head Football Coach Mike Elko
(Ref: On The 150th anniversary of Texas A&M Kickoff)
“We are excited to start the 150th anniversary kickoff Saturday Night, obviously it is a huge thing for this university, and we are honored that they are going to kick off the celebration at the football game. It’s pretty cool that we are able to break out the camo uniforms as it symbolizes what this university stands for, so we are excited for the opportunity.”
(Ref: On what he told his team about facing adversity)
“I told the guys this morning that when you are in a position where you are facing adversity, where things aren’t going the way, you had hoped, the only thing that you can do is come together and work. That is the only option you have. You have got to commit to a process that is going to allow the results to change somehow, some way. We can’t want it to happen, we can’t talk about it happening, there’s no magic words. We have to identify the issue, and we have got to go attack it every single day. We had a good practice this morning we have to go out and have a great week of preparation and then go out on Saturday and perform at the level we know we are capable of.”
(Ref: On his approach with a struggling quarterback)
“Coaching is trying to identify the best way to extract results, and get better performance so obviously we have to try to find what that recipe is with him but I don’t think there is a set way that you handle a struggling kid, I think you are trying to help every kid find a way to better performance and Marcel is certainly no different.”
(Ref: On his diagnosis of the offensive struggles)
“I think it is a little bit of everything, I think we have to do a better job of creating explosive plays, A lot of that is finding better leverages and creating better opportunities to be able to do that. We are having to be too precise, and you know obviously that last game was a really poor game but even before that we are having to be too precise. We have got to make sure that we are developing a rhythm of what our kids can do comfortably and try to create a little more flow to it. We’re so choppy right now, it’s a good play followed up by a TFL or it’s a good play followed up with an incompletion. We just have to figure out was to creatively stay ahead of the chains and move the football.”
(Ref: On his confidence with the quarterback room)
“They are a group that has not done a lot, but you certainly have confidence in how they are developing and what they are doing and how they are practicing.”
(Ref: On recruiting the portal with multiyear starters in the lineup)
“I think it is impossible, I don’t think anybody anywhere is recruiting depth out of the portal. I don’t think that there are SEC level players in the country that are trying to go places where you have an established starter.”
(Ref: On his evaluation process four games in)
“I think every evaluation has to start internally, I think we start with who we are, and what we are asking these kids to do. I don’t think that it does not show this way. When you are in a rut and you have consistent failure, it does not show that you are trying to do things to fix it, we are actively trying to do things to fix it and we have got to continue to do better. That is the obvious statement, but you try to look at is as what are we doing? How can we create confidence? how can we create better leverage? how can we create ways while also in the back of your mind knowing we can’t recreate the wheel because that will cause more confusion and lack of execution if all of a sudden, we come in tomorrow and let’s try to do this drastically different. I do think that there are answers that we have got to come up with there is no doubt about it.”
(Ref: On how this matchup always seems to come down to the fourth quarter)
“I've played six of them now and all six of them have been that way. We're five and one in it, but in every single game, it has been like that. The first one I played in was Donovan Wilson intercepting a ball to end the game on the two-minute drive. Last year, the shootout going back and forth to my first year as the head coach, Nic Scourtin getting the sack. That to me is how this game has consistently played out. I don't know that you project what Saturday will look like or play like, but certainly that's been my history with this series, an extremely competitive game. They're a really good program. They have gotten up for this game and always played really well against us. I certainly don't anticipate that being any different on Saturday.
(Ref: On whether the miscues have been based on execution or effort)
“It's certainly not effort. I think there's a lot of cliches that go into struggles and one of them is always, ‘they're not trying or they're not putting everything they have into it.’ I just think those are, in a lot of ways, cliches. At the end of the day, we're not getting results, and we're all in this business to get results. That's what we have to do, that's what this whole thing is part of, that's why I consistently reminded you about me being a fit here was a lot generated on my results. That's just the nature of this business, right? We have to go out there and we've got to find ways to be more successful. There's a lot that goes into what that what that takes, but I certainly don't think it's just a matter of try harder.”
(Ref: On if any position group is playing at an acceptable level)
“Special teams for sure. It's hard, I think you guys know me well enough like I'm not a silver lining type of guy. That's not my nature when things are going well and it certainly isn't my nature when things are going bad. I think if you look at the way Tyler White's punting the ball and you look at the way David Alano's kicking the ball, the way we're covering things, those things certainly have taken positive strides. I think the rest of it is a work in progress.”
(Ref: On the team’s confidence after recent losses)
"To the concept you're asking, I think they are for sure, angry about the way things that are gone. When you go in the meeting room, you don't have a broken team that you're trying to piece back together. I think how they get performance and how they get results, I think some of that is a lot of different things. I think you have some kids that are pressing and wanting it so bad that it's not coming the way they want. You have some kids that need to learn a little bit more, what it takes to strain to the level you need to strain to. I think you have some kids that need to practice better. There's a lot of layers to each kid as to where performance needs to improve to get the result that they want on Saturday. If you're asking big picture, we have a team that showed up on time for the team meeting this morning, wanting to figure out what it's going to take to fix this thing, change this thing, and move it in a different direction.”
(Ref: On how to get Marcel Reed through a mental block among other players)
“I think the struggles in the LSU game were really deep. These are obvious statements, but [Marcel Reed] is a part of it, but I don't think he was the only part of it. I think there were struggles at so many levels in the LSU game that it's hard to pinpoint one guy and what he did wrong.”
(Ref: On the inability to sack opposing quarterbacks this season)
“We've got to figure out ways to attack and blitz better. I think we've got to figure out ways to make the quarterback more uncomfortable, there's no doubt about it. I don't think it's a four-game problem, it certainly was a problem Saturday. I think Saturday obviously was the first time where a team really stood there, threw drop back passes and we weren't able to get there the way we wanted to. We've got to figure out a better plan to do that more effectively.”
(Ref: On what he sees from the Arkansas team that he will face Saturday)
“I think it's a team that's forming its identity with a new staff with a lot of respect for Coach Silverfield and what he's done, he ran a really strong program at Memphis. They’re obviously coming off of a really strong victory last week against a Tulsa team that had been playing really good football and so they're certainly going to come in here now with a lot of confidence that they've started to figure things out and are moving in a direction they want to move. It’s a team that's going to give us an awful lot Saturday night for sure.”
(Ref: On problems defending the pass game)
“I think when you break down the defensive game Saturday night, it falls into three categories. I think there were sometimes where early on we were playing at an acceptable level. Then there were some things that I would relate as eye violations where guys got lost in play actions in the backfield, which caused some layers to the coverage issue. Then there were just some, in my opinion, technical issues in the second half where we got beat in man to man. So not so much the not matched on the right guy, not being on the right guy, but getting beat. I think in those three buckets, it's a little bit different, but still something that's obviously not to the level it needs to be and needs to get corrected and improved.”
