Texas A&M HC Mike Elko hilariously puts national narrative on Marcel Reed and Aggies in its place as they head into SEC play
Mike Elko trying his best to keep Texas A&M focused as he shuts down outside noise
The Texas A&M Aggies are already on track to make a push towards the College Football Playoff. Two easy wins over UTSA and Utah State. A massive victory over Notre Dame. Head coach Mike Elko has Texas A&M right where they need to be, and it’s clear he’s feeling confident based on his comments this week.
When asked about how he keeps his players focused and shuts down all the outside noise, coach Elko spent more time on that subject than any other when meeting with media from A to Z Sports and other SEC outlets this week. It’s obvious that he was a bit tired of hearing negative things on his quarterback Marcel Reed, and couldn’t help but talk him up and poke fun at the lazy national narratives.
Mike Elko makes fun of the Marcel Reed accuracy narrative
It’s easy for any team to be distracted by outside noise when things are going good (or bad), and that’s going to have to be something coach Elko manages as his team is well on their way to a special season. He admitted that his team may not have handled all the attention last season, but couldn’t help make fun of the Marcel Reed narrative that wouldn’t stay silent this past offseason:
“I think we try on a daily basis to get them to understand how irrelevant the outside noise needs to be. And I told them this story. I think you’ll laugh at this. I said it took Marcel [Reed] to have one of his worst accuracy games of his career to now be deemed a kid who can throw the ball really well. And so, with success comes narratives, and you just learn how to deal with them. And I also think we learned a hard lesson last year. We got to 5-0. We got to the top of the SEC. And I don’t know that we handled it really well last year, so we still have that to draw on.”
The national narrative surrounding Marcel Reed was that he couldn’t really pass this past offseason. It was entirely baseless to begin with, but it likely stems from the only game most people remember from Texas A&M’s 2024 season: their LSU win. In that game Reed only needed to complete two passes because he destroyed the Tigers on the ground so badly. Surely that means he couldn’t pass because didn’t, right?
Reed already flashed plenty of passing upside down the stretch last season, but this year he’s been lights out, leading to the Aggies scoring over 40 points in each of their first three games. He’s thrown nine touchdowns to just one interception. Reed is posting over ten adjusted yards per pass attempt. He’s evading pressure well with a 3.3% pressure to sack rate that’s near #1 in the nation. Reed is turning into a really solid passing QB.
What’s hilarious–and Elko’s point–is that it seriously took Reed’s most innaccurate, worst-by-far, passing game for the national media to finally admit he’s a good passer. He did struggle for much of the Notre Dame game, missed some deep shots, and threw a handful of balls that could have been intercepted. However, his best moments were unbelievably impressive, which has many A&M fans bullish on his future (as you can see a great example of in the post below).
Mike Elko keeping Texas A&M focused amid success
As Elko continued sharing his thoughts on blocking on out the national narrative it’s clear that Elko and his team are doing their best to block out all the noise, especially now that the negatives are almost all silent.
“You just learn lessons about what to listen to, what not to listen to, what to ignore. And so I think all of that gave us a lot of a lot of substance to talk through what we knew inevitably would be a lot of noise in either direction coming out of the Notre Dame game. It would be as loud to the negative had we lost. And so I think you just kind of learn how to manage that as a player. You learn how to manage that internally, and you just understand that at the end of the day, you just got to keep going to work and becoming the best team we can become.”
Reed, his star quarterback, is apparently doing a great job of handling the success as well. His comments on all the issues with his passing in his opening meeting with the press this summer is long gone. He’s clearly locked in now, ready to just get better every day:
“I just think part of my job for [Marcel Reed] is to continue to educate him on how to handle everything that comes with being a big time quarterback. And He’s great. He’s so mature. He handles this stuff so well. I don’t think he lets anything ever get to him. I just think any opportunity we get to show them how one sided some of these narratives can get without a ton of actual facts or knowledge behind them, we try to take advantage of it.”
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The Aggies are off this week, but they kick off SEC play on September 27th against the Auburn Tigers. Hopefully the team can continue to block out the noise, lock in some SEC wins, and keep the momentum building.
We’ll be back with more Texas A&M Aggies coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news!
