Mike Elko addresses national championship standards at Texas A&M

Based on the decision-making in College Station over the past month, it’s clear that expectations are high at Texas A&M. Now, as Mike Elko takes over the Aggies, he has every intention of fulfilling those aspirations.

Elko addressed the standards that are clearly present at A&M during his introductory press conference on Monday. To him, there’s a lot of untapped potential within their program. However, they can’t start to reach it unless they start being about it as much as they say they are.

“I just think when you look at what this program is capable of? What we’ve got to do is we’ve got to fulfill that potential,” said Elko.

“That happens with work. That was the message that I sent to the players, that was the message that I tried to deliver to the crowd,” Elko said. “We can’t just say we want to be something, we can’t just say we want to arrive somewhere. We’ve got to be committed to all the work that it’s going to take, from today until we kick off next September, of doing that.”

It’s not just physical growth that Elko is asking them to commit to. That’s just one layer of it. He is referring to everything, in their locker room and on the field, that can prepare them in any way for what they’re hoping to achieve.

“There’s a lot that goes into that. There’s culture building, there’s camaraderie. Connecting with the players, there’s the players connecting at a greater level with each other. There’s strength and conditioning, there’s development,” said Elko. “There’s so much that goes into winning football games in the fall. Those are the things that we’ve got to start taking pride in.”

During just two years in Durham, Elko built a program out of Duke. He built one that went 16-9 overall in his 25 games and could’ve been even better had this season gone to plan.

As he takes charge of a new program, he’s now hoping he can build an even bigger one at Texas A&M. That’ll be the case if he can instill the work ethic that will get them where they’re hoping to go.

“It’s easy to take pride in making big plays on Saturdays in front of 110,000 people. Are we willing to do the things that we need to do, when no one’s looking, so we can have the results that we want come the fall?” Elko asked.