Ross Bjork pressed on whether Mike Elko was his top choice

Texas A&M ended its coaching search late last week when it tapped Duke head coach and former Aggies defensive coordinator Mike Elko as the program’s next head coach.

But it didn’t happen without some twists in the road.

Late Saturday night there were reports that Kentucky‘s Mark Stoops was on the verge of accepting the job, though he later made it clear he planned to remain at Kentucky. From there, things moved quickly with Elko.

Texas A&M athletics director Ross Bjork was pressed on whether Elko was the program’s first choice, and he didn’t necessarily provide a crystal clear answer.

“Look, here’s the thing, these things are fluid,” Bjork said. “And again, when you get down to crunch time, I felt that if we had the right group of finalists I think this weekend was critical to get things done. Transfer portal opens up. We were done playing. The kids had the week off from any football practice.

“I felt like, ‘Look, if we have a final group then we need to activate that final group and let’s zero in on who we think is the No. 1 choice.’ And really that’s where it led.”

The coaching search ended up wrapping up without any further. Mike Elko was formally tapped for the job and he was introduced at a press conference earlier this week.

No Stoops, despite the social media barrage his reported interest caused over the weekend.

Bjork acknowledged the drama.

“And really late Saturday night as everything is; I’m getting pinged as well,” Bjork said. “I don’t know if you’re part of the whatever you were tweeting out. I wasn’t reading Twitter, believe me. We were focused on let’s get it right. That’s really, again, all that matters, and that’s my responsibility, is let’s get it right.”

Texas A&M certainly believes it has that with Elko now in place.

Mike Elko spent two years at Duke, where he helped the Blue Devils reach back-to-back bowl games and put together a 16-9 record, with a 9-7 mark in ACC play.

Prior to that he spent four years as Texas A&M’s defensive coordinator, so that should also help ease the transition for Elko, making it more likely that Bjork is correct in his assessment that Texas A&M got the right guy.