Mike Elko Makes Texas A&M History vs. Florida

With the Aggies' 34-17 win over Florida on Saturday, Elko is now the first Texas A&M head coach to start 3-0 in SEC play in back-to-back seasons since the Aggies joined the conference in 2012. The Aggies only started 3-0 in SEC play once before, which came in 2016 under Kevin Sumlin.

It's only fitting that Elko reached this milestone in perhaps the Aggies' most complete game of the season so far. Sure, Texas A&M didn't beat the breaks off of Florida, but both the offense and defense played together and earned a three-score victory.

"I thought we played a complete balanced game," Elko told reporters Monday. "It was the first time where we went from good to bad to good, and those things are good signs. When things are good and you stay good, that obviously happens. But when you can have some adversity on defense and then straighten it out and finish the right way--when you can start well on offense, have some adversity, and then find a way to put the game away--I think those things are all good signs of growth and kind of where we're headed.

"And then just the thing that I'm probably most proud of, just that you put numbers on this, is the way we finished the game. We outscored them, 10-0 in the fourth quarter. I thought we were the stronger team down the stretch. They go for it on a 4th-and-6, we stop them, (then) we run 20 of the next 21 plays and eat up almost 11 minutes of clock and give them the ball back down 17 with less than 1:20 left in the game. If you can play football like that, you're going to win a lot of games."

It will be difficult to maintain that undefeated record, as each of the Aggies' next three games are on the road and two of them are against ranked opponents. However, they've shown that they can beat anyone in the country, and if Elko has them ready, they can absolutely get through this stretch unscathed.