Listening to that interview reminds me how stupid we were to fire RC.
Texas A&M Football
Legendary R.C. Slocum 'encouraged' by Elko's leadership & approach
College football hall-of-famer R.C. Slocum has won more games at Texas A&M than any other coach in history. With the Aggies bringing in Mike Elko, Slocum joined TexAgs Radio to share some of his wisdom and expertise on what makes Elko a good fit in Aggieland.
Key notes from R.C. Slocum interview
- I am very pleased with the hire. I knew Mike Elko when he was here before. I thought he did great work at Texas A&M, and I thought he was a good guy. In terms of being a defensive head coach, there are a couple of guys who are defensive head coaches, and they’ve done pretty well. The coach at Alabama and the coach at Georgia both come from defensive backgrounds, and I knew both of them when they were assistants. They’ve done a great job. A defensive coach has spent his career in the film room watching offenses, so he knows full well what is really hard and what wins games.
- I think it’s really important to have a relationship with the high school coaches, and I am so glad to see Elko reach out to them. This is a great football state. You could make the argument that it’s the best, but it’s definitely one of the best two or three that produces college and NFL players. At Texas A&M, your base recruiting has to be in Texas. You can see these kids from when they’re young and make good evaluations. It’s not about just getting guys. It’s about getting the guys that fit your program and want to be here. You can get in the car and drive three hours in any direction and come across a lot of great college prospects.
- You know the coaches have a relationship with them, and you get straight information. If you go into a high school, a coach has had a number of players who have gone on to be good college players. You can get good information. I remember going into a school and a coach telling me to keep an eye on a sophomore. It might have been Aaron Wallace or someone like that. You can’t spend enough time in New Jersey, South Carolina or Ohio to get that kind of information.
- With the name A&M has, there are always people from around the country who will have reasons to come here from out of state. I recruited Sirr Parker, and his family wanted him to get out of Los Angeles because they were worried about the atmosphere. He had an aunt who lived in Houston. There are situations like that where you can hand-pick players from around the country, but you ought to make your living in Texas.
- I always wanted players to have their parents in the stands and to be looking for them in the stands after a big win. We lost four home games in 10 years, and we had a lot of mothers and fathers in the stands watching those kids. We had a lot of Texas kids, and I think 54 were drafted during my time.
- I didn’t worry about five-star or three-star. I told my coaches that they should not overlook a five-star, but I wanted them to do a thorough evaluation. In no way did I want to take a guy because he was a five-star. I recently talked to an NFL coach, and when you compare the NFL Draft to guys coming out of high school, it is roughly broken down into thirds. One-third were five-stars out of high school, one-third were four-stars, and one-third were three-stars or lower. You can get caught up in all of that. I want to know what my coaches have players ranked, and I’ll evaluate if this guy fits into our program. The coaches are how you get that information.
- My coaches and I would go every year to the high school coaches' clinic. It was always in San Angelo. I spent about 25 years out there to be around and let those guys know that their work was important to me.
- I wish I had the answer to why there hasn’t been sustained success. When I was coaching, I felt we were way behind in our facilities. I told people that. I couldn’t get it done fast enough. When we started The Zone, that project was intended for football facilities for our players, but The Zone helped us sell tickets and helped improve the north endzone. It didn’t do anything for the players, and it wasn’t a recruiting advantage. We needed that locker room facility, the Bright building. I went out and raised the money to do that, but I got fired before I ever got to use the building. We were recruiting on it, and my last year was a really good recruiting year. There was a quarterback from Baytown that was committed to us. He went to Iowa and was the offensive player of the year in the Big Ten as a sophomore.
- Facilities make a huge difference, and A&M has done a great job. Our former students have stepped up. The school has stepped up. We have comparable facilities to all the top programs in the country. That is paying dividends and will continue to pay dividends.
- We have great leadership right now. I love our new president. I think he’s a great leader who will do a great job at A&M.
- The pieces are in place. We need someone to come in and pick the right guys and develop them. It’s very easy to be misled by a great recruiting year and so many five-stars, but how many did you get in here that played and were disciplined? That’s the next phase for us. Picking the right guys and developing the right guys. I think Mike Elko will do that. He has been at a place where they had to develop guys. I’m encouraged. I think it’s all lining up right now.
- The NFL and the NIL. I really wanted guys who aspired to be NFL players and had the ability. If we couldn’t project him to be in the NFL, then we shouldn’t bring him here because that’s what we’d play against with the good teams. That should be a major part of recruiting. The second thing is the character issue of getting a guy who is a good person. I would go into every home and tell the parents that I would try to keep their son going on the path they had him on. There were some athletic guys that I would not bring him to A&M because he had demonstrated his character. I wasn’t in the rescue business of taking thugs. I was in the business of taking good guys and putting the polish on them to help them be better.
- The NIL is a new direction in college football, and I’m not a big fan of it. That being said, if that’s the rule, I am glad that A&M donors have stepped up and that we’re being competitive in that market. You have to be very careful not to get into bidding wars with NIL. That is not a reason to come here, but players will be compensated like they would elsewhere.
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