Despite the negativity, we still had very good year and Elko, to his credit, took it upon himself to identify weaknesses and coach up our team improve from last year (e.g. explosive plays).

My question is where do we feel like he needs to focus this year? A few obvious areas to me:

- Special Teams coach has to go. This has to be the worst unit in 20 years.
- Rush defense had to be bottom of the SEC, esp on 15+ yard rushes given up. I think this is already in process of being fixed getting Bateman out of there. However, we can't continue to just always be running run blitzes. We have to be able to mix in playing base run defense to maintain our gap integrity. I'd rather have half the TFLs with no big runs, than what we've been doing. I also would hope it could improve with better LB and safety talent, which for safety esp we should target in the portal.
- Improve QB accuracy whatever way possible. I don't care if it means getting another QB, hiring a better QBs coach, or benching Marcel, with our offensive talent. We've got to have someone hitting at least in the upper 60s if we're going to be an "elite" team next year.
- Emphasize turnover production on defense. Perhaps again, this is already in process with us losing our DB coach, but our DBs/DLs have to make QBs pay for getting pressured. Our best Elko defense in 2021 produced 18 and we only produced 9, tied for 118th.

Anything else y'all can think of?

I think the defensive issues will take care of themselves as we get more talent on that side of the ball. Elko got every drop he could out of a bunch of mostly 3 stars.

As far as QB play goes, I have no idea. I'm not sure we're gonna get a real upgrade in the portal. I don't think elite QBs are leaving their teams in droves.

Turnover margin. Huge factor in determining outcomes and we were terrible at taking it away on defense and the last 3 games we gave it away too much.

Staff is what it is and we promoted from within. These two don't work out and Elko will be a goner, bet his career on two first time coordinators

Keep in mind Elko has had one real year of recruiting
His first year was literally having to fill a team with transfers due to everyone leaving

To me what he did in year 2 was remarkable even if it was against teams in their down years

Up side looks great

Right now our best LB going into next season is 16. I would not be surprised if we lost 3 to the portal/graduate. And this is already a small group numbers wise. We will be better next year at LB with Bateman gone and 2 new starters at LB.

Do we have problems with LB recruiting because we run a 4-2-5? I sure wish we ran a system with 3 or more. I can't figure out if our run defense problems is schematic or missed assignments. I hope the new guy can shore up the LBs but I'm not convinced our issues are player related.

Fishwrangler11 said:

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Despite the negativity, we still had very good year and Elko, to his credit, took it upon himself to identify weaknesses and coach up our team improve from last year (e.g. explosive plays).

My question is where do we feel like he needs to focus this year? A few obvious areas to me:

- Special Teams coach has to go. This has to be the worst unit in 20 years.
- Rush defense had to be bottom of the SEC, esp on 15+ yard rushes given up. I think this is already in process of being fixed getting Bateman out of there. However, we can't continue to just always be running run blitzes. We have to be able to mix in playing base run defense to maintain our gap integrity. I'd rather have half the TFLs with no big runs, than what we've been doing. I also would hope it could improve with better LB and safety talent, which for safety esp we should target in the portal.
- Improve QB accuracy whatever way possible. I don't care if it means getting another QB, hiring a better QBs coach, or benching Marcel, with our offensive talent. We've got to have someone hitting at least in the upper 60s if we're going to be an "elite" team next year.
- Emphasize turnover production on defense. Perhaps again, this is already in process with us losing our DB coach, but our DBs/DLs have to make QBs pay for getting pressured. Our best Elko defense in 2021 produced 18 and we only produced 9, tied for 118th.

Anything else y'all can think of?

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IMO this is the biggest issue for 2026. You cannot win consistently with a 60% QB.

Everyone wants to blame Klein for play calling but he's not missing wide open receivers or throwing the ball to the other team. Reed missed several check downs and could have avoided sacks on Saturday. He also seemed prone to pulling the ball on RPO's when there run was there and could have gotten positive yards instead of a incomplete pass or sack.

In the post-game, Coach Bateman did mention Aggies running a "light box".
and it obvious if you're watching for it.
it's been a reoccurring set for a while