Could Mike Elko be going to Texas?

Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring. Laundry?

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Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Ch-Ch-Ch-Chumba! ChumbaCasino.com. In the city of Durham, North Carolina, there is a head coach by the name of Mike Elko. And Mike Elko, while he is coaching the Duke Blue Devils, has one hand here dealing with his team, and the other hand others dropping his name into this giant hat of potential head coaching candidates for a number of schools, but most specifically narrowed down to Texas A&M University, which over the weekend, if you'd been hiding under a rock, decided to part ways with head coach Jimbo Fisher, wanted to part ways with him so bad that they spent $75 million to say, go away. Here to provide a little perspective is essentially my brother from another mother. Morning host at ESPN San Antonio, he is Rob Thompson.

I follow him on X. Rob Thompson, ESPN, and Rob, I'm guessing the $75 million came from the lack of field storming fines A&M has had to deal with in the last couple of seasons. You know, you've got to find ways to save money in this modern economy, and if we're not going to be able to charge the field and rip down the goal posts, we might as well spend it on a brand new coach. Morning, Paulie. How's life in North Carolina today? Rob, it's solid here, probably at a little more solid footing ground than for those of you who are alum and A&M fans. I saw your videos prior to this weekend's happening, so it felt like you were kind of a Nostradamus kind of predictor in what was going to happen after this weekend come hell or high water, but I think where it went wrong for Jimbo, aside from record is, the last couple of years, he just failed to keep the fans engaged with what he was trying to do.

Well said, Paulie. You know, at the end of the day, A&M has aspirations to be a national program. We heard the AD after the firing say they were stuck in neutral and the idea of what a national program could be. When you look at what Jimbo did and how far we've gotten, you know, eight and four is enough for a lot of places, and it's a very successful athletic program, $130 million budget a year, $3.1 billion annual budget for the university itself. There is this desperate need to either buy to get into that national conversation, or if we're not already there as an Aggie, to kind of firmly put our place there with consistent winning. And when you start to see ticket sales drop, when you see the 12th man, which is the organization behind A&M, when you start hearing that and donations to the collective start to drop a bit, that's what got A&M's attention, at least Ross Bjork in the athletic department. $77.5 million is the buyout, not quite the Gus Malzahn money from Auburn, which was about $20 million in change, but A&M wanted Jimbo out that bad.

I can only imagine there's buyer's remorse. The joke that I've seen is that Kevin Sumlin is the Dollar General because he got just as many wins at a much bigger discount. But for A&M, and I don't want to be the funny guy in this, because A&M's going through what a lot of schools are going through. We just saw Mississippi State take out Zach Arnett today as well, where the college arms race is so strong, and you want that winning program.

I have already argued on this program, Rob, and you can blast me if you want to. I don't think A&M can spend like a drunken sailor when they decide to pick their next head coach. Well, it's not a matter of not having the money. Let's remember that $77 million does indeed sound, it's a lot of money in this grand scheme of things, and while the Aggies are way ahead of the rest of the country, I think if you add up the previous five buyouts, top buyouts in the rest of college football history, they still don't add up to Jimbo. And keep in mind, I think we're still paying Sumlin, but we paid $9.5 million to go away just a couple years ago. As far as the money search goes, A&M has deep pockets. There's not a coach in the country that if they do want to come to A&M, that they cannot get paid. Whether it's a $12 to $15 million coach or a $5 million coach, the money will continue not to be an issue. In fact, I think the Aggies feel backed into a corner to prove that they do in fact have the money to pay whoever they choose would be worthy. Like a Mike Elko from Duke. Rob Thompson, ESPN San Antonio, joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. And Rob, you mentioned Mike Elko, and I want to get to that point real quick, but I do want to challenge you a little bit on the idea of keep spending money and keep spending money when it comes to college coaches.

At a certain point... Some of that responsibility, you can only keep firing coaches so often. There has to be an administrative kind of fall on the sword as well, where if we're going to hand $20 million to a coach that the next coach we hire to hire, saying A&M does spend that kind of money on Mike Elko, for example, that if it doesn't work out, that the Board of Regents or the 12th man or whatever it is, needs to turn their heads a little bit farther to the left and go, maybe it's not the coaching. I think that there is a desperate attempt to buy their way out of this mindset at Texas A&M. And for those who are unaware of the place that A&M sits in the state of Texas, you know, the University of Texas will be a preeminent, always has been. A&M left the Big 12 because of Texas. And as we see Texas now finally coming to join us in the SEC, there is this added desperation to at least, at the very least, keep up with the Joneses. And as we saw what Texas has done for the last couple of years in their recruiting and their high-end coaches, I mean, Sox turned out to be a pretty decent one, even if this year hasn't measured up completely. There is this desperate need in College Station for the Aggies to keep up and to continue with this process of heading toward a title that we haven't seen since 1939.

Well, it feels like that in ACC land for certain teams in the same way. Rob Thompson, host at ESPN San Antonio, joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. All right, Rob, you mentioned Mike Elko. Talk to me about Mike Elko and his four years in College Station running the defense there, and then the day it was announced he was leaving to take the job here.

Oh, man, well, first of all, keep in mind what little success that Jimbo did experience was tied with Elko. You know, the thing about A&M is we're very much a relationship kind of school. There has to be at least in some ways some sort of root, some sort of branch that you have as a coach that can come in and coach here, whether it be in a relationship in the conference, whether it be previously there. Elko is of the mindset that A&M believes who they are.

A defense first, offense, let the guys go play, but attack defensively. For those that were part of the A&M war, the wrecking crew is what we aspire to live up to defensively. And Elko was about as close to that guy as A&M has seen in 25 years. He does fit, though there are a few inside, and I'm one of them, that is really looking for someone with a little bit more experience as a head coach. But if there's going to be a coach hired to come to A&M that is not currently, that doesn't already have a national championship or is not currently coaching in the building or very close in the state of Texas, I think Elko is part of those three.

I think Elko is going to be a finalist. They're looking very closely at Oregon's coach. Here in Texas, Jeff Traylor, who's coaching here in San Antonio at the University of Texas, San Antonio, who has taken a very young program and put them on the map. The reason he's in the conversation is he is very close with the Texas high school football coaches. He came directly out of high school to coach at University of Texas.

There's a relationship there. I think if it's going to be a defensive guy, it will be Elko. Rob Thompson, ESPN San Antonio here on the Adam Gold Show. When Russ Bjork talked this morning or talked about the letting go of Jimbo Fisher, he ran down a list of characteristics that, as we went through it, seemed like it checked a lot of boxes for Mike Elko, but it checks a lot of boxes for other coaches. Program identity, which you mentioned, great interpersonal skills, player development, academics. You can't get more academic than Duke.

A strong recruiting background with solid organizational skills. I'm going to put you out on the edge of the cliff. We're looking over together. You and I will jump together. You and I can hold hands or whatever.

We can just hug together and go, all right, one, two, three, jump. Your thoughts on at least your prospects of thinking Elko makes it to this final round in terms of getting interviews at A&M, if he's interested. Well, he is certainly going to be tops on the list because, quite frankly, we know him. And he has played a role in a lot of those players that they might have already I mean, he's been gone for enough time that everybody he did recruit was gone. But he was in those high schools and the coaches that he was going to meet with and recruit with still remember him. And that matters here in Texas because of the battle between the University of Texas and the rest of the Big 12. And the SEC is we're dealing with that.

And those relationships really get to get down in there. But there is this thought that he might not be a big enough name. And if there is a budgetary constraint, if there is a little bit of money, you figure a guy like Elko would be more willing to see the long term benefits of this. I don't think the A&M could go wrong grabbing Elko.

There is a sense, though, of a bigger current name floating around out there, or somebody a little bit more attuned to the state of Texas. OK, round two, name something that's not boring. Laundry. Oh, a book club. Computer solitaire, huh? Oh, sorry, we were looking for Chumba Casino. That's right, ChumbaCasino.com has over 100 casino style games. Join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes.

ChumbaCasino.com. I'm very eager to see if I was a betting run right now, I would say Dan Lanning is probably got the inside track. Elko third or second, Jeff Traylor third. And don't don't leave out Cliff Kingsbury. I'm starting to hear some of the local types, those with a little bit of money, would like to see some offense that the type of that Kingsbury brought. And don't forget, he was an offensive coordinator at A&M under someone that was involved with a couple of quarterbacks coming in and certainly around with Johnny. So there there was some there's some relationship there as well. That is a lot of great insight and a lot of a lot of names getting thrown out there. Rob Thompson, ESPN San Antonio here on the Adam Gold Show.

Rob, last one for you here. A&M adds itself to a long list of potential job openings in major conferences in the power five or power fours or whatever you want to call them. Michigan State's open. Northwestern may or may not be open. You have Mississippi State as well. San Diego State will have an opening at the end of the season and I'm sure there'll be a number of larger openings as well. How do you sell A&M to a coach knowing that the day they walk in there, they step into probably top 10 pressure cookers right now when it comes to head coaching and program expectation?

At the very least. But you will walk into a program that will be willing to give you a little bit of time and you will not have any more resources at any university anywhere in the country than you will with Texas A&M. Whatever you need, we already have.

It's being built currently. Oh, we've got plenty of money to go get it. That includes, as important as anything else, the A&M collective, the money that they are able to pay these players. There's not five schools in the country with a bigger payroll than Texas A&M. They land here, they are paid well, and there's no reason to leave as long as the victories come. It is a sleeping giant. Unfortunately, it's turned into a 100-year nap, but we're right there.

I think the selling points are much more positive and they're far more than the negatives of Bing and also Rand and all the pressure that goes with this school who might think they are a little bit bigger than they really are. They'll roll out whoever it is, I'm sure, at the first basketball game they can and probably make them go to midnight yell whether they want to or not to. I don't want to change the subject, but it's a football thing down here in the state of Texas, but I was turning the channel on Saturday. Did I see Duke losing home to Arizona? Did that happen?

That actually did happen. We were just discussing that. Arizona's not a bad basketball team. Duke got pushed around a little bit, even though they've got some... Come home in a different jersey and take care. Boy, it's going to be a fun fall there in Durham. Yeah, it certainly will.

College football wrapping up college basketball is going to be just as awesome. Rob, appreciate your time, friend. We'll talk soon. Molly, thanks for the time. Appreciate you. Y'all have a great day. See website for details.