Duke football coach Mike Elko leaving to become Texas A&M head coach
Duke football coach Mike Elko’s successful two-season run as Blue Devils football coach is coming to an end.
Texas A&M announced Monday morning that Elko is the school’s new head coach.
“Coach Mike Elko is one of the best leaders and coaches in college football and has had high-level success at each stop of his career,” Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork said in a statement. “He is known amongst coaching circles as one of the best defensive minds in the country and has shown his ability to lead and turn around a program as a Power 5 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 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. A deal was finalized in the wee hours Monday morning before a private plane whisked Elko and his wife, Michelle, to College Station, Texas, in the middle of the night.
“First and foremost, I want to thank coach Mike Elko,” Duke athletics director Nina King said Monday. “He worked tirelessly in his two seasons here to truly elevate our football program and so we are really appreciative of Mike and the work that he did here. Mike and I had great conversations, including into the late hours of last night, relative to the investment, the growth and the support from this university and our administration for the Duke football program.”
Though Duke reworked Elko’s contract last summer to add more resources for him, the staff and the program, the Blue Devils weren’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.
That said, Elko agreed to a deal that pays him $7 million annually, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
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.
King named Duke assistant coach Trooper Taylor as the team’s interim head coach while she leads the search for the new head coach. She met with the team Monday morning.
“Our priority is the well being of our current student athletes,” King said, “and to ensure that they have what they need as they close out the semester academically, as well as prepare for a very well earned bowl game later this month.”
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.
King seeks to mitigate the impact by meeting on Zoom with the committed players Monday night and also having a virtual meeting with families of the current players.
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.
Two years ago, when the school’s search landed on Elko, the Blue Devils interviewed Marshall head coach Charles Huff and Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun, among others.
This story was originally published November 27, 2023 at 6:48 AM.