SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Sixteen thoughts for No. 16 Texas A&M’s win on a Saturday that began for us on the shores of Lake Michigan and ended in the shadow of Touchdown Jesus:
1. I often refer to Mike Elko as “Your Favorite Football Coach’s Favorite Football Coach.” That’s because he receives so much unsolicited praise from his peers in conversation after conversation. That was especially true when he was a defensive coordinator at places like Wake Forest, Notre Dame and Texas A&M before finally becoming a head coach at Duke at the age of 44.
2. When Elko went viral in 2017 for his expletive-laced rant with his Notre Dame players about Miami’s turnover chain, a school that had Elko on its radar for a head-coach opening backed off, with the president turned off by that image. (Undoubtedly, this further endeared Elko to his coaching peers.)
3. To understand Elko is to understand that the sky is always falling, that nothing is ever good enough. Anyone who didn’t already know that learned it in comical fashion on Saturday night, when Elko broke a chair on the sidelines while yelling at his defense. None of this is for show. As a colleague of his once told me: “Mike was raised in a trailer park (in New Jersey) and has an Ivy League education (Penn). He can recruit anybody.”