Mike Elko on possibly benching Conner Weigman: 'I just don't know that that's human nature'
The Texas A&M Aggies struggled on the offensive side of the ball in their Week 1 loss to Notre Dame. Still, head coach Mike Elko has made it clear that he’s sticking with quarterback Conner Weigman.
As Elko explained on The Aggie Football Hour, a lot of evaluation went into the decision to start Weigman. That’s not something that the staff is looking to get away from after he goes through struggles in one game.
“I addressed this in the press conference and I really believe this,” Mike Elko said. “There’s always this thought that you just move on. We’ve evaluated the quarterback competition, which is exactly where this one’s headed, we’ve evaluated about 1,000 quarterback reps since I got hired and it was a competition, and Conner did win it.”
Notre Dame has what is expected to be one of the best defenses in the country this season with its secondary being a strength, in particular. That defense forced Weigman into mistakes and he finished the game completing just 12 of 30 passes for 100 yards and two interceptions.
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For Mike Elko, there is some humanity to these decisions. Nobody wants to lose their job over a bad day at work and, on top of that, these are still young people in their college years.
“I don’t know that it’s in anybody’s best interest to just pull the plug on a kid the second things aren’t going well. I just don’t know that that’s human nature,” Elko said. “I don’t know that anybody wants to get fired on their job the first time it doesn’t go exactly how they hoped it would, who doesn’t get a second day? We’re dealing with 18 to 21-year-olds. You do the best you can.”
With that, Elko made it clear that he’s behind Weigman as the season moves forward for the Aggies.
“We felt Conner was going to give us a chance to win the game,” Elko said. “I did. All the way to the end and, honestly, with the game tied one of the best throws he made all night was to Le’Veon Moss who unfortunately didn’t stretch forward and we wound up half a yard short. Even all the way through that last throw before they took the drive to take the lead, I still felt like Conner was going to go out there and put it together and give us a drive. He had just led us down the field to tie it.”
The Notre Dame game was Conner Weigman’s first since coming off an injury that ended his 2023 season early. He previously started four games last season, completing 68.9 percent of passes for 979 yards and eight touchdowns.
“So, never really crossed our mind to go in a different direction,” Elko concluded.
Conner Weigman takes ownership for Week 1 struggles
Following the game, Conner Weigman shouldered the blame and took ownership for his struggles in the Notre Dame game.
“I take it back to my baseball days. ‘So what? Next pitch.’ That’s how I’ve approached any sport I play. Like I told my teammates this morning — point blank, period — I have to be better. I mean, there’s no excuses for how I played. Literally point blank, period, I’ve got to be better. That’s what I told them this morning,” Weigman said.
“I don’t back down from anything. I’ll face it head-on. I’ll be the first one to tell you that I didn’t play the way I was supposed to play. Point blank, period, I’ve got to be better.”
Weigman and the Aggies will look to bounce back in Week 2 against the McNeese State Cowboys.