Elko pleased with effort, energy shown in A&M's first three practices

First-year coach Mike Elko started a spring football news conference talking about seemingly every other sport at Texas A&M.

He wished good luck to the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams in the upcoming NCAA and to the equestrian team in the Southeastern Conference championships this weekend.

“A lot of good things going on within Texas A&M athletics this spring,” Elko said. “Obviously, if you see the success our baseball and softball teams are having right now, (they’re) certainly setting the bar high for us and what we have to do this fall.”

Elko added that through three spring practices — only one in pads — he has seen some indications for optimism that the football team can reach the standards being set by other A&M teams.

“Happy with where we’re at,” Elko said. “Happy with the way the guys are working. I love the energy we’re bringing to the field. I think there’s certainly a need and a desire to get better every day.

“I think when you have to those things — when kids understand what we have to do and have the right mindset to go out there and do it — you have a lot of confidence that growth will occur at a really rapid rate.

“We’ve had one padded practice, so we’re not going to draw any large conclusions about where things are or where things stand right now at this point. But certainly happy with the way the first three days have gone.”

True, not much can be learned through three practices, especially for a new coach with a new staff that’s installing new systems.

But Elko is pleased with the effort he’s getting.

He knows the players are giving great effort because A&M uses scientific methods that gauge effort levels.

“One of the things we’re just trying get our kids to understand what straining feels like,” he said. “What does it feel like to go out and truly strain and exhaust yourself? That’s one of the things that sports science allows us to do now. Rather than the old days when it was just me yelling, ‘You’ve got to go harder.’

“We now actually have science to say you ran within 90 percent of your top speed. If you didn’t, we know you didn’t. There’s a lot less gray area in that world.”

He said that science also helps to prevent soft tissue injuries like hamstrings.

“We don’t hit those max efforts for the first time against Notre Dame (on Aug. 31) and then put unbelievably stress on our muscles that we can’t last through the season,” Elko said.

Players seem to be responding well to Elko’s expectations and demands.

“I love that because everyone is doing what they need to be doing now,” tackle Trey Zuhn said. “There’s no room for ‘who’s doing what, who’s doing what?’ They were kind of letting … not letting stuff slide last year …  but now we’re really strict on that. I like that because everybody is doing the right things. It’s showing up in football, too.”

Brownlow-Dindy Out For Now

Elko said defensive lineman Gabriel Brownlow-Dindy has not yet participated in spring drills because of an off-season injury.

“We didn’t list him on the injury report because I don’t think he’ll be out all spring,” Elko said. “But he’s out right now. He hasn’t been able to do a ton, physically, since the early parts of winter workouts. He’s getting closer to getting released and into some activity, and hopefully, we can get him out there and see where he’s at.”

Spring Game Format

Jamie Maury, TexAgs

The 2024 Maroon & White Game will be held at Kyle Field on April 20 at 1 p.m. CT.

Elko also said the format for the spring game on April 20 will be like a regular game with a draft to determine the Maroon & White rosters.

“We try to make it fan-friendly,” he said. “I think it’s important when our fans come to the spring game. They want to be able to follow it.

“We do everything we can to make it flow and play like a football game just because the fans can follow it in a way they’re accustomed to.”

Finding Starters

Elko said near the end of spring drills that coaches will at least have an idea of who may ultimately be starters.

“You start to figure out where that separation is as you kind of go through spring,” he said. “But you’ve got to be really conscious with a new system, new scheme, new practice, new everything that you don’t rush to too many judgments.

“You never know when it’s going to click for a kid or when he’s going to get confident and really show you what you can do. It’s almost like having 85 freshmen.”