Ross Bjork shares hiring process of Mike Elko

Texas A&M made headlines when it decided to move on from Jimbo Fisher. After going on a highly anticipated search, athletic director Ross Bjork shared how he landed on Mike Elko to be the Aggies’ next head coach.

Bjork explained that the search firm helped in the process but that Elko was always one of the top candidates.

“We started the process Sunday night on November the 12th, right?” Ross Bjork said. “And people think search firms pick the coach for you. That’s not how it works. The search firm, their job is to understand the landscape throughout the whole year, not just during football season, not just when I call them on November 12th and say, ‘Hey, okay, are you ready?’ Well, yeah, they’re always ready. So, they understand the landscape. They understand who is movable.”

Bjork added that Elko showed Texas A&M throughout the process that he was the right person to instill a winning culture in the program.

“Coach Elko was on our list from the very beginning. And as the process unfolded, as the identity of what we really, really wanted and we thought was the right DNA of a program that wins, he obviously rose to the top. There was engagement from the beginning,” Bjork said.

“And, like I said, everybody was active, and we kept that process going all the way through Saturday night and Sunday morning. And then we went and picked him up last night. I think you were out there at 2:00 a.m., right? You didn’t get much sleep, like me either.”

Ross Bjork pressed on whether Mike Elko was his top choice

At one point, it seemed like Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops was going to take the Texas A&M job. However, that didn’t happen and Mike Elko landed the job in the end. Still, those rumors led to Ross Bjork getting pressed on whether or not Elko was his top choice.

“Look, here’s the thing, these things are fluid. 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,” Bjork said. “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.”

However, Ross Bjork did acknowledge the drama around the coaching search.

“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.”