Mike Elko addresses Garrett Nussmeier viral comments on Kyle Field ahead of matchup

LSU travels to Texas A&M this weekend in a high-stakes, ranked SEC matchup at Kyle Field. It’s a stadium that Tigers quarterback Garrett Nussmeier previously admitted was loud, but not Death Valley on The Bayou loud.

Nussmeier’s comments have resurfaced ahead of LSU’s Top 25 game Saturday in College Station. Aggies head coach Mike Elko recently talked about the response to Nussmeier’s ‘challenge’ and what makes Kyle Field and the 12th Man so special.

“I’m gonna leave the first part of that question for about 10 o’clock Saturday night,” Elko said.

“The second part of that question, what makes it special, and I joked about this because I couldn’t believe in the spring there was conversations about the 12th Man showing up at the spring game. And I addressed it in the spring, there’s a lot of things I worry about, the one thing I never worry about is where the 12th Man will be when Texas A&M football is playing on Saturday,” Elko added. “They will be in Kyle, they will be loud and proud, and they will give us an unbelievable home field advantage.”

Nussmeier’s initial comments came when being asked about the EA Sports rankings of the toughest places to play ahead of the highly anticipated roll out of the College Football 25 video game. Defending LSU’s home turf at Tiger Stadium that ranked third on the list while Kyle Field took the top spot.

But more recently ahead of this weekend’s game he was slightly more complimentary of the 12th Man.

“Obviously, we acknowledge it’s a tough environment. It’s a tough place to play. It’s going to be loud, it’s going to be exciting,” Nussmeier said. “For us, we’re playing a football game this Saturday. Yeah, it’s going to be loud. That’s going to be the environment … We’re focused on us. We’re focused on executing to the best of our ability and attacking our opponent.”

There’s no question that both LSU and Texas A&M’s have two of the most hostile environments across the entire college football landscape, and that Kyle Field will be rocking on Saturday night in the ‘Home of the 12th Man’. But Elko opened up about how the support from the Aggies’ fan base is what truly makes the atmosphere unique.

“What it means to us is everything. It means that you have support, and we talk about it all the time with the players. You deal with so much negativity nowadays when things don’t go right like social media, and message boards, and blogs, and all of these things,” Elko explained. “And the kids to understand, like your fan base is here for you all the time. Like they don’t turn your back on you. It’s not if you win, they love you. If you don’t, they don’t. You’re very blessed to be at a place where your fan base shows up and supports you all the time.”

The Aggies will definitely be showing up this weekend when they host LSU in a marquee matchup kicking off at 7:30 p.m. ET in a game airing on ABC and streaming on Fubo.