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Mike Elko's first season as head coach of the Texas A&M Aggies went so, so well, until it didn't.
To keep it brief, the Aggies, after a 7-1 start, lost four of their final five games to end the season in a disappointing slump. That stretch included a blowout against South Carolina, a four-overtime heartbreaker against Auburn, a futile effort against rival Texas, and finally, an agonizing defeat against USC in the Las Vegas Bowl.
Five months after the season came to an end, Elko took time to reflect on that rough stretch Tuesday at the annual SEC spring meetings in Florida.
"I think it was a lot of things," Elko told reporters. "One, we were in a situation that we had not been in before. We played back-to-back night games on the road in the SEC as 'the' team, the team that was being hunted. I do not know that we handled that particularly well, certainly not down at South Carolina. Auburn, I think we fought better and competed better. Then when you look at it, it comes down to a double-overtime game and us just trying to find a way to make another play."
"We went back and forth, toe to toe with the team that wound up in the NCAA semifinals and did not get the job done in the last one."
The game against Texas was not "back and forth" despite the 17-7 final score, but that's a different discussion entirely.
The late-season collapse might as well be a cliche for the Aggies at this point. They had several seasons under Kevin Sumlin and Jimbo Fisher where they started hot and looked like national championship contenders, but faltered down the stretch and ended up in the realm of 8-5.
Elko knows that if he wants to realize his vision of turning the Aggies into a premier college football team, he has to figure out how to close seasons correctly.
"I think part of it is – and I have said this before to the team – success is never linear," Elko said. "When you are trying to build a program from where we were to where we want to be, or where we should be, you want it to go smooth and you want it to go easy. It does not always work like that, and that does not mean that things are not going in the right direction. It just means you have to make some adjustments and fix it moving forward."
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The 'Most game-winning drives by an NFL quarterback' quiz
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