Note: This story is featured in the 2026 edition of Dave Campbell's Texas Football's Summer Magazine, which you can order here.

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Mike Elko believes he’s delivered enough proof of concept for the 12th Man to let go of historical baggage.  

Texas A&M beat a Top 10 team on the road in non-conference play for the first time since 1979. They knocked off LSU in Baton Rouge for the first time as an SEC program. They started 11-0 for the first since R.C. Slocum’s Aggies went 12-0 in 1992 and went to the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history.  

Texas A&M is 53-21 overall and 33-16 against the SEC over the six years Elko has roamed Kyle Field as either a defensive coordinator or head coach beginning in 2018. The program was 12-13 overall and 6-10 in conference play in the two years over that span where he was at Duke.  

But even during the magical run of 2025, Elko was asked about the ghosts. About the times Texas A&M has fallen short of expectations or choked away a golden opportunity. About what could go wrong. He’s hoping Texas A&M can start looking forward more than backward and embrace the climb to the top.  

“I just think it is unfair to the current players to carry the cargo of past failures,” Elko said in the spring. “Let’s just enjoy the ride. Let’s stop looking back and saying, ‘well, all the other rides didn’t end the way we wanted them to so this one won’t either.’ I don’t see how that is productive.”   

Elko is also a realist. He knows his Aggies struggled down the stretch in each of his first two seasons at the helm. Texas A&M started 2024 with a 7-1 record with Top 10 wins over Missouri and LSU at home before limping to a 1-4 finish that included a loss to USC in the Las Vegas Bowl. Last year ended with a 10-3 loss at home in the CFP to Miami.  

A lifelong Aggie fan living through the trauma of yesteryear might see those finishes as proof that history repeats itself and that Texas A&M is doomed to trip up at the finish line, but Elko would disagree. He sees them as necessary growing pains and the required struggle to reach the pinnacle and eventually win an SEC and national championship.  

Maybe worst of all, losses to Texas have cost the Ags a trip to the SEC Championship Game in consecutive seasons.   

“We hit a point where we just weren’t able to finish the way we had hoped or wanted to but I think that’s sometimes inevitable when you’re building,” Elko said. “You recalibrate, readjust, and then move on.”  

Moving on from 2025 required change. Texas A&M replaced its offensive and defensive coordinators with in-house promotions. The roster lost its best running back, best wide receiver, four starters along the offensive line, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year at defensive end, the best cover corner, and a multiple-year starter and team captain at linebacker.  

No team sent more players to the NFL Combine than Texas A&M and the Aggies had double-digit players drafted for the first time in a long time.  

“To be an elite program, you’ve got to reload,” Elko said. “That is our challenge. We’ve got a lot of new faces and we’re going to have a lot of new starters. Can we go out there and maintain our level?”  

Another road block is a schedule that includes trips to LSU, Alabama, South Carolina, and Oklahoma. Not to mention home tilts with Tennessee and Texas in November. Fair or not, seasons for the SEC elites are now judged by reaching the CFP. To return, Texas A&M likely needs 10 wins from that gauntlet. Elko knows it.  

“We know what our goals and expectations are as a program,” Elko said. “We want to be competing to go to Atlanta. We want to compete for the playoffs. We want to beat UT. Like, those are the goals and expectations for the program now.”