Mike Elko’s Texas A&M capped the 2025 season with an 11-2 record, and this milestone is only the beginning of what Elko and his staff aim to achieve in the coming years. With a talented, deep roster, the Aggies have the potential for another playoff run, but Elko thinks instilling a clear team identity and sense of purpose in his players is key.
Head Coach Mike Elko Pushes Texas A&M to Define Itself with Uncompromising Mandate
Speaking with On3’s Josh Pate on Tuesday, Elko laid out the Aggies’ process for achieving excellence.
“It’s okay, you see the four-second highlight that you’re chasing,” Elko said. “You see the draft and the guy walking across the stage at the NFL draft. That stuff is on your feed constantly. How are we getting there? We do this a lot, so many times in our team meetings. It’s the old, you know, hey, if you want to go to the NFL, raise your hand, okay, if you want to win a chance. It’s everybody, and it’s a reminder, just so you guys know, everyone in every team room across America is doing this right now.
“It’s the people that are going to leave this team room and go do something about it that are going to ultimately accomplish things. I certainly think it’s a huge part of coaching in this day and age, and certainly pulling entitlement out of players has always been a big part of growth.
“You only grow when you don’t feel you’re entitled to success, but now, with NIL and all the different things that come along with it, it’s probably even harder to pull the entitlement away. It’s critical because you have to understand that you only get success through work. It’s the only way you’re ever going to find it.”
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The Aggies’ recent turnaround of shifting from a losing streak in 2024 to an 11-win run in 2025 shows what’s possible under Elko’s leadership. However, he knows that 2026 will present an entirely new set of challenges, as the schedule is a gauntlet, featuring road trips to LSU, Alabama, and Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, Texas A&M welcomes a top 10 recruiting class and several elite transfers, all of whom must integrate into Elko’s demanding system.
With two decades of college coaching experience shaping his philosophy, Elko is focused on constructing a culture of discipline, accountability, and self-defined success.
“I think that my job as the leader is to create a vision,” Elko said (6:00). “And then on a day-to-day basis, make sure that vision gets filled out. And then I think I just actually had a speech about this the other night, talking to a large group of people.
“If you have that culture and you really believe in that culture, what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to go out there, and you’ve got to recruit it. You’ve got to hire it, and you’ve got to build it every single day. And it’s got to be at the priority of what you do.”
Even with talent flooding into College Station, Elko is clear-eyed about the work ahead. He remarked after a spring practice that the Aggies still have an “awful long way” to go to become a truly great team.
Their spring game is scheduled for April 18 and will be a key early test of how well the players have embraced his mandate. According to PFSN, the Aggies have a 58.7% chance of securing the College Football Playoff in 2026.
