With college football season around the corner, practically every fanbase is setting expectations for the coming season. Some programs are built for contention, others are embracing a methodical rebuild, and then there’s whatever is happening in College Station.
The fanbase, often 100,000+ strong “12th Man,” is known for making Kyle Field on of the toughest places to play in the country. However, ESPN has classified them as one of the biggest underachieving programs of the last five seasons, alongside other large and wealthy programs like Penn St, USC and Florida.
Surprisingly, the Aggies have slightly outperformed according to ESPN’s SP+ metric. Components of SP+ are “recent recruiting rankings long-term history, stadium capacity and, where available, coach and coaching staff salaries.”
A&M ranks tenth in actual SP+, two places higher than its ranking of 12th in expected SP+, though its 9-1 2020 season, the high mark of the Jimbo Fisher era, is an outlier boosting the data set. Outside of the 2020 season, the program has gone 28-22 overall and 14-18 in conference play over the last five years.
This is all despite multiple highly-touted recruiting classes, including Fisher's bringing the nation’s highest-rated class featuring eight five-star recruits to College Station after the introduction of NIL deals to the sport in 2022.
Elko served as Fisher’s defensive coordinator from 2018-2021 before taking the Duke job and going 16-9 in two seasons in Durham. Once his former boss was bought out of the remaining years of his contract for a record $75 million, A&M moved quickly to bring back Elko on a six-year $42 million deal with additional incentives.
Despite arriving in December, Elko was able to land the nation’s 16th-ranked recruiting class, according to 247sports . Headlining the class is five-star ATH Terry Bussey out of Timpson, Texas, who signed with the Aggies in February after visiting Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Alabama, to name a few.
Additionally, A&M has welcomed a top-five transfer class featuring six four-stars who could all make an immediate impact on the defensive side of the ball.
The Aggies also have a relatively easy schedule compared to many other SEC schools, with winnable road games at Florida, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Auburn. Notre Dame will come to Kyle Field in week one, as will conference foes Arkansas, Missouri and LSU, and renewed rival Texas in the Lone Star Showdown on Nov. 30.
Given the colossal Fisher buyout, Elko will presumably be given at least three seasons, half of the length of his contract, to have the program in contention, but Connelly and Rittneburg point out that there is often a core, institutional problem plaguing the Aggies.
“Texas A&M can spend like few others -- on facilities, coaching salaries, NIL deals -- but hasn't found the ingredients for sustained success. As a former Texas A&M administrator told me, the school's power structure -- chancellor for the university system, board of regents, president for the College Station campus and the 12th Man Foundation -- creates layers that can hinder alignment and production, even if everyone is well-intentioned.”
Only time will tell if Elko and the administration can revamp this power structure to give the school a chance at competing for its first national championship since 1939.
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