Duke football coach Mike Elko leaving to become Texas A&M head coach, sources confirm
Duke football coach Mike Elko’s successful two-season run as Blue Devils football coach is coming to an end.
School sources said early Monday morning that Elko accepted an offer to return to Texas A&M to become the Aggies head coach.
Earlier this month, Texas A&M fired head coach Jimbo Fisher, who employed Elko as his defensive coordinator at the school from 2018-21. Duke hired Elko as its head coach in December 2021 and he’s posted a 16-9 record over the past two seasons.
The 46-year-old Elko won the ACC coach of the year award last season, when he took a Duke team that went 3-9 in 2021 and led it to a 9-4 record. This year, the Blue Devils completed a 7-5 regular season with a 30-19 win over Pittsburgh on Saturday.
Texas A&M’s search took some wild turns Saturday night, when various reports indicated Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops would take the job. But Stoops squashed that, posting on social media that he would remain at Kentucky.
That’s when the Aggies turned their full attention to Elko, who informed Duke on Sunday he was in discussions with Texas A&M.
Though Duke reworked Elko’s contract last summer to add more resources for him, the staff and the program, the Blue Devils aren’t in position to match the kind of money Texas A&M pours into its program. Fisher received a $76 million buyout when he was fired on Nov. 12. Fisher’s annual salary jumped to $9 million when his deal was restructured in 2021.
Texas A&M went 34-14 with Elko as its defensive coordinator from 2018-21. The Aggies are 12-12 over the past two seasons, leading to Fisher’s dismissal.
Elko’s main concern at Duke, as it would be at any school that employs him, is having enough boosters to fund NIL deals needed to retain and attract players via recruiting and in the transfer portal.
“That’s the world that we live in nowadays,” Elko said. “We are probably about 13 days away from complete anarchy and the wild west. That probably started three weeks ago. You hear all these coaches talking about people reaching out to guys and recruiting guys. That’s just the world of college athletics.”
With the early signing day for 2024 recruits looming Dec. 20, Duke has 22 players committed for this class. That includes four-star quarterback Tyler Cherry of Greenfield, Indiana. The class is ranked No. 36 nationally by 247sports.com.
The coaching staff change, of course, could cause those committed players to revisit their decisions before signing day.
Elko came to Duke after the school parted ways with David Cutcliffe, who had led the Blue Devils to six bowl appearances in seven seasons between 2012-18. The Blue Devils lost 13 consecutive ACC games over the pandemic-impacted 2020 and 2021 seasons, when they won just five games overall.
Having never been a head coach at any level, Elko immediately changed Duke’s fortunes using many of the players he inherited from Cutcliffe.
With a bowl game still to play this season, Duke must turn its attention quickly to hiring a new coach.
This story was originally published November 26, 2023 at 5:15 PM.