AggieDruggist89 said:

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Big Ed Bookman said:

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2% Ag 01 said:

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Elko is coming in and doing and saying the right things with this team. He's overturning years of culture flaws in the program and piecing together a team that can go out and compete. The defense looked good, but the offense was very clearly flawed.

Is that a reason to turn on him, 1 game in? That's absurd. New system with a qb who is returning from injury and has to face ND defense with a defensive coordinator who is a master at disguising coverages. This was going to be a dogfight and we obviously know the result.

The measure of the team isn't losing 1 game, or even looking awful for 1 game... it's how the respond. How do they improve? Do they continue to show up for Elko, or shut it down? And can we show enough to recruit?

But those of you wanting to turn on Connor and Elko already are weak.

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Best post in this thread.

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Is that you Mrs. Elko?

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"The defense looked good, but the offense was very clearly flawed."


I like Elko and I think he can be successful but what you described here is basically a summary of last year and we were so fed up we were willing to pay Jimbo $75M to go away.

fav13andac1)c said:

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Doubledown 2447 said:

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I have nott turned but my opinion dropped dramatically but watching us doggedly do the same things that has led to failure before.
We should have changed qb during the game and gave our team a chance to win.

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You don't change QBs with a tied ball game late in the 4th quarter. It's not like we were playing App State.

It was a hard fought game up until the very end.

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You absolutely do in this case. We have running QBs on the bench that give ND another issue to deal with which just might have won us the game. CM looked like hot garbage and he wasn't getting any better. Are you afraid the backup would have done worse? The odds were highly unlikely on that. It might not have been an improvement in passing but as bad as CM was, it was worth a shot.

I'd assume because BAS is real and at this point legitimately so. After several decades of under performance with the resources and support we have I can't blame people for having zero patience. Can anyone honestly point to another university who has done "less with more" than Texas A&M? I sure as hell can't. Add to this the the portal which has pretty much negated the concept of taking years to build a program, in many people's eyes at least, you have a recipe for basically zero tolerance for a lack of immediate success.

I have a feeling that the days of Aggie patience are a thing of the past. Elko, whether he deserves it or not, is going to be the first to feel this. I'd say he has three years and that's about it.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Opinion only.

Luke warm hire. And now with the portal and NIL, the expectation isn't 3 years to recruit and build his guys. Onus is on the coach to use the NIL and raid the portal to flip the team around now.

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I'm not too worried about recruiting or the portal. Think he's done a good job there. My only concern is it seems the job was basically handed to Conner. That's dangerous for a guy with such a small track record who is operating a new system and missing spring ball. Elko needs to be open minded about whether he's the solution. I'm not convinced we have a really good QB option but ok is better than bad.

I like Elko. This season might not be great but he'll go 8-4 and get better as he goes. My gut is Elko will figure it out and have the Aggies in the playoffs more often than not.

Nibblerweather said:

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The anger has more to do with the fact that A&M paid what seems like an all time record breaking buyout to have somebody else come in and fix our offense. To fix our offense we hired our beloved former defensive coordinator. Although we played an elite defense, our offense looked as bad or worse than it did under Jimbo, and our star QB appears to have regressed significantly. Had we simply lost to ND that would be fine, its the way we lost and how bad our offense looked.

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This guy gets it.

Nibblerweather said:

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Had we simply lost to ND that would be fine, its the way we lost and how bad our offense looked.

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Can we stop saying this nonsense?

I've been on this board for 20+ years and after every close loss I read this sentence, but I've literally never seen it play out.

This board was gonna be pissed regardless of how we lost, so let's stop pretending every loss has some mitigating circumstance that makes it uniquely deserving of meltdown vs some mythical "okay" loss.

This is basically football fandoms version of "no offense, but…".

The ND game was very winnable. We blew that chance amd everyone witnessed it. Before the game everyone but old man Coroso predicted we would win

The vast majority here thought we would win

We should have.

Good coaches find ways to win

Bad coaches don't and their fans make excuses for them

Carry on with your excuses

didnt mike sherman burn the offensive playbook halfway through a season and improve drastically? let's just do that now.

For to many of the Microwave Generations think JFF's there every recruiting class.

THEY ARE WRONG!! JFF's are lucky to be once in a lifetime. The REST win because they excel as a TEAM!

Aggie Dad 26 said:

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The ND game was very winnable. We blew that chance amd everyone witnessed it. Before the game everyone but old man Coroso predicted we would win

The vast majority here thought we would win

We should have.

Good coaches find ways to win

Bad coaches don't and their fans make excuses for them

Carry on with your excuses

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And elite coaches more often than not have lost early games at their schools.

This isn't the hard fast rule you want to make it.

Nobody is saying we shouldn't be upset about letting a winnable game get away, but this "good coaches find ways to win" with a sample size of "1 game" is hilarious.

I honestly thought there was improvement in most areas save qb.

The qb being so bad and the coaches just trying to let him play through it and having no other plan, is a huge red flag.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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I was never on board with the Elko hire. It's ok.

Ultimately it's on Elko for setting up CW for the failure. CW failed miserably and Elko failed to make necessary adjustments. And if Klein failed to manage our offense, this also falls on Elko too. It's about the accountability.

Let's see how Elko manages our program in 2024. My guess is he'll be mediocre at best by losing all the games we will lose and beat up on small programs we are suppose to. And I don't believe that what we want.

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Let's not forget ND secondary is top tier. They seemed well versed in bending rules to maintain coverage. A little holding was keeping our WRs covered. Combine that with an off night for CWs accuracy, and we are cooked.

I'm very interested in McGee's breakdown. At least the OL was pretty solid.

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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The ND game was very winnable. We blew that chance amd everyone witnessed it. Before the game everyone but old man Coroso predicted we would win

The vast majority here thought we would win

We should have.

Good coaches find ways to win

Bad coaches don't and their fans make excuses for them

Carry on with your excuses

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And elite coaches more often than not have lost early games at their schools.

This isn't the hard fast rule you want to make it.

Nobody is saying we shouldn't be upset about letting a winnable game get away, but this "good coaches find ways to win" with a sample size of "1 game" is hilarious.

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• It appears you're saying we shouldn't be upset.
• Good coaches do find ways to win.
• You're hilarious.

TyperWoods said:

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Aggie_Nuke said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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I was never on board with the Elko hire. It's ok.

Ultimately it's on Elko for setting up CW for the failure. CW failed miserably and Elko failed to make necessary adjustments. And if Klein failed to manage our offense, this also falls on Elko too. It's about the accountability.

Let's see how Elko manages our program in 2024. My guess is he'll be mediocre at best by losing all the games we will lose and beat up on small programs we are suppose to. And I don't believe that what we want.

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Agree completely, and we're well on our way to year 85 of mediocrity !

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We haven't been mediocre for 85 years.

Such a sip post

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That is fair to say we haven't always been mediocre during the last 85 years. However, we have achieved almost nothing of note in the last 85 years and the overall body of work is definitely mediocre.

74AnimalA said:

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For to many of the Microwave Generations think JFF's there every recruiting class.

THEY ARE WRONG!! JFF's are lucky to be once in a lifetime. The REST win because they excel as a TEAM!

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Sir,

We don't expect JFF every year. But we do not expect our QB to have the worst QB rating after game 1. How about the likes of...

Bucky
Kevin Murray post injury
Craig Stump
Jerrod Johnson
Corey Pullig
Kyle Allen
Kenny Hill
Ryan Tennehill
Trevor Knight
Stephen McGee
Randy McCown
Mark Farris
Dustin Long

I'll even throw in Chris Osgood...and Lance Pavlas

Man...there were some on the list who really couldn't pass. We used to say "Oh *****." when the ball was in the air.

But some of the QBs were tough leaders who'd find a way to win games.

As a fanbase, we go way overboard on both sides. Many overreact to everything on the negative side and many have a ludicrous level of blind faith. The number of "Trust Sumlin" or "Trust Jimbo" posts over the years were infuriating. Short of someone like Saban who has proven himself to almost always make good decisions, we shouldn't be blindly trusting our coaches. If they do something that looks dumb, we should feel free to criticize it, not just trust that the coach is so amazing that they must be doing the right thing.

Elko was a decent hire. I don't get how people viewed him as a "homerun" hire. We could have done much worse in terms of the resume of the person we hired. There are people with much better resumes, but they weren't available to us. Either way, the resume when hired doesn't 100% decide how successful the coach will be. Elko could turn out to be a total failure, or he could turn out to be great.

The only take-away at this point IMO is that Elko does not appear to have had his QB ready to play, and his overall offense looked bad (which at least significantly was due to the QB play). Given that the biggest problem under Jimbo last year was how horrible our offense was, I can see why people are so upset to see the same thing in game 1 under Elko.

In reality, it is too early to be as negative as the fanbase is, but that is the way we roll. Things aren't generally as bad as we make them out to be, and things are rarely anywhere near as good as we act like they are. We will probably have people making a big deal out of us destroying McNeese State and people talking about us making the playoffs before we have beaten anyone who is actually good. Notre Dame, Missouri, LSU, and Texas are the only likely good teams we play this year. We shouldn't be talking playoffs unless we can beat some of those. If Elko goes 8-4, that should be viewed as OK. Better than that is over-achieving. Less is under-achieving.

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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The ND game was very winnable. We blew that chance amd everyone witnessed it. Before the game everyone but old man Coroso predicted we would win

The vast majority here thought we would win

We should have.

Good coaches find ways to win

Bad coaches don't and their fans make excuses for them

Carry on with your excuses

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And elite coaches more often than not have lost early games at their schools.

This isn't the hard fast rule you want to make it.

Nobody is saying we shouldn't be upset about letting a winnable game get away, but this "good coaches find ways to win" with a sample size of "1 game" is hilarious.

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I'm glad you find it "hilarious"

Revisit the '98 game versus FSU. We had 151 total yards in the game and 20 yards in 2nd half. We lost 23-10.

ND is not FSU '98 caliber but the results are eerily similar.

Look at it this way. Elko wasn't the first choice.

matter of fact he wasn't in the top 5.


Put together a list of the ones that said no before we got to Elko. (and include stoops even tho we were the ones that backpedaled that one. he still was ahead of elko on the ask list). I mean thats a long list of possibles before anyone gets to Mark Stoops as the savior.

The coaches of top 10 programs aren't trying to fight there way here. Despite $$$ and the most intense committed fanbase and top tier facilities.

Why is that?

MaroonStain said:

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Revisit the '98 game versus FSU. We had 151 total yards in the game and 20 yards in 2nd half. We lost 23-10.

ND is not FSU '98 caliber but the results are eerily similar.

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Was that the first game of the season? I recall RC's interview before the game.

I've seen people already saying Elko isn't our guy after one game to a top 10 team. It's really isn't nice.

Elko isn't a sexy hire like Jimbo or Coach Sumlin, but his background has shown that he has the ability to build a program that is capable of winning 10 plus games every year.

As long as there aren't any Town and Country Buffets that end up opening in Bryan or College Station Coach Elko should be fine.

Some of us are tired of building a team. We want someone to hit the ground running and not to Golden Corrals either.

I haven't "turned against" Elko. I just don't understand why people think he's gonna get different results than Jimbo. If Elko is not careful, Klein is gonna cost him his job. I know the ND defense is good, and Weigman played bad, but I'm just skeptical about how Klein's system is gonna work in the SEC.

JDCAG (NOT Colin) said:

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Nibblerweather said:

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Had we simply lost to ND that would be fine, its the way we lost and how bad our offense looked.

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Can we stop saying this nonsense?

I've been on this board for 20+ years and after every close loss I read this sentence, but I've literally never seen it play out.

This board was gonna be pissed regardless of how we lost, so let's stop pretending every loss has some mitigating circumstance that makes it uniquely deserving of meltdown vs some mythical "okay" loss.

This is basically football fandoms version of "no offense, but…".

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You misrepresented my post by only quoting the last line. I'm a fan of Elko and have always been on board with his hire. My post was explaining why people are upset, which is not fully conveyed in your reactions . Do I think he can right the ship? Yes. Nowhere did I say it is worth melting down over , or that it was a unique loss. Most of our losses the last few years looked like this.

11 of 16 SEC teams got to play cupcake games in Week 1, and 10 of them won by 31+ points each. The only exception was South Carolina's 23-19 win over Old Dominion. If we had played McNeese State last Saturday nd Notre Dame this Saturday, I think we would have a better chance of beating Notre Dame because Conner Weigman would have gotten a warmup game to prepare for Notre Dame.

Other than an all-SEC schedule 2020, Jimbo Fisher never had to face a Power 4 team in Week 1. In Jimbo's first year, we played Northwestern State on 8/30/18, 9 days before playing Clemson at home. Then, we had a close 28-26 home loss to a Clemson team that went on to become a 15-0 national champion. If we had played Clemson in Week 1, I don't think that home game against Clemson would not have been as close. Unlike Jimbo, Elko did not have the luxury of starting his tenure with a cupcake game in Week 1. Next year, we will get to play 2 cupcake games against UTSA and Utah State before traveling to South Bend, Indiana to play Notre Dame. Of course, it will still be tougher to play Notre Dame on the road than at home.

The road game at Florida will be a good litmus test for Mike Elko and Conner Weigman. Florida has lost 6 consecutive games, including 3 consecutive home games, and 24 of their last 34 games against Power 4 teams, dating back to a 37-34 home loss to LSU on 12/12/20. For these reasons, I think the road game at Florida is our most winnable road game. Otherwise, a loss at Florida would extend our road losing streak to 11 games and our losing streak against Power 4 teams to 4 games.

Disagree on UF being most winnable game....if you didnt watch the USCe/Old Dominion game last week, they looked like hot garbage, espicially at QB, thir QB looked like a less talented DJ Uiagalelei

5 years from now people will be looking back at this team and probably scratching their heads wondering "why"

The 2-deep is loaded with NFL talent. We have a backup QB that might put up heisman numbers if he transfers.

Elko hasn't done anything (yet) to suggest that he will become a legendary coach. We probably have a coach more in the RC Slocum or Kirk Firentz mode. Good, but not great.

But those of you thinking that he's going to be gone soon if the team doesn't immediately perform are delusional. We're paying one coach 9 mm or so a year not to show up, and Elko 7 mm or so to be there and coach the team. It would be shocking if we doubled down on that.

Don't hold your breath on fan reactions to losses.

The main thing that looked bad in the game was QB. All other areas of the team improved. LB was lower but that's more a result of losing an all American at a position that only was two spots on the field. All other positions were improved besides QB. We shall see if this is a player or coaching issue soon enough.

Now I'm not for grading a new coach on one game. I prefer 1-2 seasons. After 1 game win or lose is nonsense.

However these would be my thoughts at this time.

For those saying Jimbo 2.0 or whatever such nonsense. Will you see similar things from time to time. Yes, maybe. It would be hard to not have that one. But for the most part they are nothing alike. That's crystal clear. Does that mean Elko builds a winning program. TBD but it's not a negative at this time.

Many are overreacting to some things he said in his PC. The first time I listened to it, I was like, say what? But listening to it again and Reading between the coach speak, I saw a coach that was not pleased at the QB play. It's going to get remedied one way or another sooner than later.

Just a word of advice. After a loss, make sure you can spot the troll threads easily. Helps with ignoring them or how you respond.

Iraq2xVeteran said:

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11 of 16 SEC teams got to play cupcake games in Week 1, and 10 of them won by 31+ points each. The only exception was South Carolina's 23-19 win over Old Dominion. I think if we had played McNeese State yesterday and Notre Dame this Saturday, we would have a better chance of beating Notre Dame because Conner Weigman would have gotten a warmup game to prepare for Notre Dame.

Other than an all-SEC schedule 2020, Jimbo Fisher never had to face a Power 4 team in Week 1. In Jimbo's first year, we played Northwestern State on 8/30/18, 9 days before playing Clemson at home. Then, we had a close 28-26 home loss to a Clemson team that went on to become a 15-0 national champion. If we had played Clemson in week 1, I don't think that home game to Clemson have been as close. Unlike Jimbo, Elko did not have the luxury of starting his tenure with a cupcake game in Week 1. Next year, we will get to play 2 cupcake games against UTSA and Utah State before traveling to South Bend, Indiana to play Notre Dame. Of course, that will still be a very tough road game.

The road game at Florida will be a good litmus test for Mike Elko and Conner Weigman. Florida has lost 6 consecutive games, including 3 consecutive home games, and 24 of their last 34 games against Power 4 teams, dating back to a 37-34 home loss to LSU on 12/12/20. For these reasons, I think the road game at Florida is our most winnable road game. Otherwise, a loss at Florida would extend our road losing streak to 11 games and our losing streak against Power 4 teams to 4 games.

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Good post. Florida is going to be an interesting game to see how we stack up. I believe the next 3 conference games will shape the season.

Fair enough.

Iraq2xVeteran said:

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The road game at Florida will be a good litmus test for Mike Elko and Conner Weigman. Florida has lost 6 consecutive games, including 3 consecutive home games, and 24 of their last 34 games against Power 4 teams, dating back to a 37-34 home loss to LSU on 12/12/20.

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That's a bottom end litmus test. It can only say how bad we are not how good we are. We "should" win that game easily. A loss would not bode well.

Newbies have a LOT of adjustment coming to Aggieland, ALL of them, no exception for coaches.
The closeups of his face underlines the statement of fact above.
PROS: this is not what HE recruited, some left for "greener" pastures, impossible to create a solid team if none are under Contract for All Four Years
CONS: the close up face of someone not class president when SNAFUs arrived, the stick-with-what's-not working policy

Our sport was NOT football but even I can see when a QB/offense is crumbling after holding their own for so long in the game, even with braindead mistakes/anchors.
As such, am asking ... are not the solutions
1) change the QB?
2) failing that, RUN the ball?
IDK