{"id":365890,"date":"2025-11-09T02:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T02:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/365890\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T02:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T02:41:10","slug":"mike-elko-bristles-at-past-urges-9-0-texas-am-to-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/365890\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Elko bristles at past, urges 9-0 Texas A&#038;M to &#8216;finish&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>COLUMBIA, Mo. &#8212; Mike Elko doesn&#8217;t like talking about the past, so he&#8217;s doing everything he can to focus on the present.<\/p>\n<p>This <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"014788cd-231c-e33e-32c3-7e8d9a1e530f\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/245\/texas-a&amp;m-aggies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas A&amp;M<\/a> team is not the same one that lost its last four games against Power 4 teams last year after starting 7-1. This Aggies team is ranked No. 3 and 9-0 for the first time since 1992, and just the fifth time in school history, after Saturday night&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/game\/_\/gameId\/401752763\/texas-am-missouri\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">38-17 win<\/a> over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/142\/missouri-tigers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Missouri<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Texas A&amp;M is the only team in the country with three road wins over teams ranked in the Associated Press poll, including a win over now-No. 10 <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"ebc2999c-2ff4-8435-ca46-9641e9f9ea10\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/87\/notre-dame-fighting-irish\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Notre Dame<\/a> in South Bend. After seeing what it takes to win games like this on the road late in the year after last year&#8217;s struggles, Elko struck a familiar refrain.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Is this our weekly last year question?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know about the past. I know that that&#8217;s four road games that this team has gone on the road and won. We&#8217;re 4-0 this year on the road and we&#8217;ve only got one left, so we&#8217;ll finish this year with a winning record if my math is right.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/46893930\/college-football-week-11-superlatives-usc-texas-tech\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762656070_945_r1572617_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/story\/_\/id\/46893784\/college-football-top-trolls-week-11\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/r1572811_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<p>In Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s first year in the SEC, it finished 11-2 as Johnny Manziel won a Heisman Trophy. In every season since then, however, the Aggies have won nine or fewer games, with fans&#8217; least favorite number being eight &#8212; with five 8-5 seasons and one at 8-4. In nine of their 13 seasons in the league, they&#8217;ve appeared in the AP top 10 but finished the season ranked only four times, including just twice in the top 15.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, the Aggies finished off a three-game road trip, surviving a 45-42 shootout with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/8\/arkansas-razorbacks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arkansas<\/a>, then wearing down both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/team\/_\/id\/99\/lsu-tigers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">LSU<\/a> and Mizzou until their stadiums emptied out.<\/p>\n<p>They did it by harassing freshman quarterback <a data-player-guid=\"36630377-41d5-34ed-a431-7bea08b3d497\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/player\/_\/id\/5195300\/matt-zollers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matt Zollers<\/a>, who finished 7-of-22 for 77 yards and a fumble that led to an A&amp;M touchdown. They chipped away at the Missouri defense, with <a data-player-guid=\"7ef5b217-b78c-3d9d-b93a-27aff33023de\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/player\/_\/id\/4870971\/marcel-reed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marcel Reed<\/a> throwing for 221 yards and two scores, with only two passes traveling more than 10 yards. Then they just kept wearing the Tigers down.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I challenged them at halftime,&#8221; Elko said, noting he was not pleased that his defense gave up 207 rushing yards. &#8220;I challenged both sides of the ball &#8212; only one side of the ball responded &#8212; that we had to go out and control the line of scrimmage better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Rueben Owens and Texas A&amp;M are 9-0 for the first time since 1992, and just the fifth time in school history, after Saturday&#8217;s blowout win over Missouri.\u00a0Photo by Rick Ulreich\/Icon Sportswire<\/p>\n<p>The Aggies rushed for 220 yards and 9.6 yards per carry in the second half, and Missouri never threatened their 14-0 halftime lead. As a result, Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s 6-0 start in the SEC is its best conference run since it started 7-0 in the Big 12 in 1998, its last season to win a conference title.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From a CEO perspective, obviously I believe this is what this program is capable of,&#8221; Elko said. &#8220;I think that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re here. We&#8217;re here because we believe the ceiling of this program is really high. It&#8217;s why we took the job. It&#8217;s why we came here as a family. &#8230; This is kind of what everyone has been talking about with this program for a long time. So for nine games we&#8217;ve lived up to it and we&#8217;ve got to go finish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Aggies return home next Saturday to face 3-6 South Carolina, then host 1-9 Samford before traveling to Austin to face Texas on the Friday after Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-football\/player\/_\/id\/4870934\/rueben-owens-ii\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rueben Owens<\/a>, who ran for 102 yards and two touchdowns against Missouri, including a 57-yarder that was A&amp;M&#8217;s longest run of the season, says there&#8217;s one word that is the Aggies&#8217; focus from here on out.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Finish,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That was the word for spring. For fall camp. Finish. Last year we didn&#8217;t finish, so all week it was finish, finish, finish.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLUMBIA, Mo. &#8212; Mike Elko doesn&#8217;t like talking about the past, so he&#8217;s doing everything he can to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":365891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-365890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115517436356568360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}