As the Aggies head into the 2026 season, there is a lot of positivity surrounding the team.  Coming off a CFP appearance, they remain a CFP potential team in most analysts’ minds.

The Aggies have a roster to compete for the CFP.  I don’t know if they will.

Elko has done a nice job of adding key pieces to the roster, especially on defense.  I think there’s a good chance our defense will be better than last year.  Which I hope is true because our defense had a few games where they weren’t great at all.

The offense has a lot of question marks from a team standpoint.  The individual components look pretty good, but none of the offensive line has ever played together.

There’s just no real idea of how well these offensive components will mesh.  Football is the most team-oriented sport.  You can guess all you want, but you never know until live bullets fly how 11 guys play together.

There is one massive thing that very few people are talking about – Holmon Wiggins.  I’ll get to him in more detail later, but the Aggie offense will be led by an OC that has never called plays at any level.

Predicting how well the Aggies will do in 2026 is beyond me.

There is not one data point that says how good Holmon Wiggins will be.

It’s all a guess.

I do know that since the dawn of the CFP (going back to 2014), only one team has made the CFP with an OC that has never called plays before.

That was in 2019 when Joe Brady was involved with the LSU Tigers.  How much he was involved with actually calling plays is unknown.  Steve Emsinger, the seasoned OC, was with him.  Brady wasn’t alone in devising game plans and calling plays.

In addition, Brady had Joe Burrow and an absolute fleet of receivers.

Joe Brady hasn’t lit the world on fire since that year, so there’s reason to believe Brady was just a part of a magical collection of talent and not the main driver.

I’ve never heard or read that it was all Joe Brady that season.  No doubt Brady contributed, but I think it’s reasonable to wonder just how much he contributed based on his work since that season.

He’s done well enough to get the Bills head coaching job, but he was also fired after two seasons in Carolina as their OC.

Either way, Joe Brady is the only OC of any sort never to call plays and make the CFP in his first year.

Maybe Holmon Wiggins is the next Joe Brady.  

History says it’s really rare.

That’s not a knock on Wiggins.  It’s just rare for someone to be super successful in their first go at anything.

I bet Wiggins has some success.  He’s coached in some big programs and has the horses.  I don’t know how he’s gonna handle late-game pressure or a defensive coordinator that’s got him completely confused on what he’s seeing.

How is he gonna handle that stretch of Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, OU, and Texas when it matters most?

Expertise usually comes with experience.

Something tells me there’s gonna be a lot of learning on the job at the expense of the Aggie offense from time to time.

What that means, record-wise, I have no idea.

We could go 6-6, or we could go undefeated.

Nobody else knows either, despite what they say.  It’s all a bunch of guessing and burning time on the air or in articles.

Onto more specific ramblings.

Mike Elko, the Head Coach

Beyond the question about Wiggins, I still have questions about Mike Elko, the head coach.

Despite what some people think, he hasn’t set the world on fire as a head coach.  He’s been good, but he’s not been anywhere near elite.

I know people talk about what he did at Duke, but his greatest success came with Riley Leonard.  Leonard helped Notre Dame to the national championship game.

Riley Leonard was a damn good college quarterback.

Elko was 9-4 in his first season and then 7-5 in his second season at Duke.

Conversely, Manny Diaz was 9-4 in his first season and 7-5 in his second season.  So the same records after the end of their second regular season.

Diaz snuck into the ACC Championship game thanks to some wild tiebreaker rules and won the thing against Virginia for Duke’s first ACC Championship since 1962.

Diaz also won their bowl game last season, finishing with a 9-5 record.

Based on records and championships, Manny Diaz had more success in his first two years than Mike Elko at Duke.

I use that as a reference point that Mike Elko’s work at Duke, while solid, is not amazing.

At A&M, he went 8-5 in his first year, losing the final four games against Power 5 opponents.  Not a good look.

In his second year, he went 11-0, then lost his final two games against Texas and Miami.

11-2 with a berth in the CFP is a really good season, but losing those final two games is tough for me to ignore, especially when you compound them with the final four games lost in the 2024 season.

He preaches and preaches finishing, but he’s not even come close to finishing in his two seasons at A&M.

He has one signature win at A&M, and that’s the win in South Bend in 2025.  Amazing win, but we don’t win that thing without Concepcion and Craver.  Sure, Elko gets credit for bringing those two guys in, but I chalk up his one signature win more to talent than to coaching.

You can call the 2025 win in Baton Rouge a signature win, but if you’re being objective, that LSU team was hot garbage.

Great and fun win emptying Tiger Stadium, but it’s not a signature win in my book.

Right now, I’d lump Elko in the same bucket as Dan Lanning and Brent Venables—great defensive coaches who haven’t quite found their head coaching ability with similar resources.

With all of this, I don’t want Mike Elko fired.  Not even close.  I want a statue of Mike Elko outside Kyle Field when a long and illustrious career in Aggieland is done.

I don’t want to do what we’ve done with countless head coaches before him.  Spin ourselves up into thinking he’s the next coming of Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings, or Jackie Sherrill.

I want those with power to hold him accountable before it’s too late, like we did with previous coaches.  The man is making $11 million a year.

I think it’s only fair those above him make it known what those shortcomings are.  While doing so, make sure he has every available resource to overcome his shortcomings.

It starts with finishing.

I also get how hard it is to win it all.

I bet most folks don’t realize there are only four active college football coaches with a national championship.

Dabo Swinney, Kirby Smart, Ryan Day, and Curt Cignetti.

Dabo has coached 17 full seasons.  He needed Venables as his DC and two really great college quarterbacks.

Kirby has coached 10 full seasons.  He finally won his in his seventh season thanks to a gutsy quarterback and suffocating defense.

It took Day six seasons to win his.  He needed two of the best coordinators to unlock that loaded roster he’d finally been stacking for years.

Cignetti did it in his second year.  He’s got some secret sauce nobody has figured out, other than it seems like he stacked his roster with a ton of older players. There’s more there, as he has a unique way of practicing and game-planning.

National championships don’t grow on trees.  It takes a lot of luck, but you have to put yourself in position to win one year after year.

We’ll find out in 2026 if Elko is positioning himself to win it all as a head coach.

Gameday Coach

Mike Elko has done really well at assembling personnel in his almost three years in Aggieland.  Jimbo didn’t leave him much thanks to that 2022 recruiting class.

He basically had to overhaul more than half his roster.

He’s done really well at roster building in his time here.  From my standpoint, he’s improved his roster each year he’s been here.

He’s also doing lights out in high school recruiting right now.  We’ll see if that talent develops and stays on campus, but I can’t question his recruiting at all.  

He’s getting talent to campus, as evident by the latest NFL draft.

Where I can question Mike Elko is in his game-day coaching.

He’s been about average.  As previously mentioned, he’s had one signature victory, and that was thanks mostly to Concepcion and Craver.  The Aggies won that game by the hair of our chinny chin chin.

He gets credit for that South Carolina game, but holy cow, what a disaster that was about to be.

We were closer to losing to Notre Dame and South Carolina than we were to beating Texas and Miami.

What does a 9-4 season look like with losing the last three games against Power 4 opponents, including the bowl game?

We weren’t far from that.

I’m fine with giving him the 11-2 record, but when you really look at the 2025 season, it was three tough games and an amazing comeback against South Carolina where we should have never been in that situation.

Auburn, Mississippi State, Florida, Arkansas, LSU, and Missouri weren’t really all that great.  Four of those six teams have new coaches heading into 2026.

Coaches get fired because their team is terrible.

I think Mike Elko’s greatest issue as a game-day coach is his offensive awareness.  I don’t know for a fact, but it seems to me he’s hands off on his coordinator calling plays.

I think he gives his offensive coordinator some guidance during the week, but during the game I think he’s spectating just like everyone else.

I say that because of two things:

1. There have been multiple calls in games where I don’t know how a head coach lets the play happen.  I know it’s easy to armchair quarterback, but even in the moment, the 4th and goal at the one-yard line against Texas in 2024 was a boneheaded call.  The deep ball to Concepcion on 3rd and 2 in the second series of the second half against Texas in 2025 just should not have happened.  As both of those plays developed, I was floored that those calls happened.  I get that a head coach can’t and shouldn’t provide feedback on every play, but in key situations, he’d better be guiding his OC.  There are some other plays, but those two are by far the most egregious.
2. Elko never talks in specifics about offensive plays after games.  Maybe it’s by design for some reason, but I think it’s because he doesn’t know the offensive game plan up and down and can’t assess in real time what’s occurring.  In his first game ever, he had to yell at someone to tell his OC to run the ball at the end of the game.  That’s not a head coach in lockstep with his OC.

Going one step further, look at the 2024 LSU game.  He didn’t pull Conner Weigman until it was painfully obvious in the second half.  Every person in that stadium knew Weigman couldn’t do it that night. It wasn’t a proactive move.  It was a completely reactive move.

He had no choice when he made the move.  

If it weren’t for Garrett Nussmeier throwing three interceptions in the second half, we don’t win that game.

Sure, Reed deserves some credit for the win, but LSU completely botched that game.  They threw three interceptions in the second half, giving us favorable field position and their complete inability to defend a zone read.

Elko was getting whipped at home by a marginal LSU team.  He should have made the move sooner.  Reed should have come in to start the second half.

Furthermore, in two seasons, he hasn’t/doesn’t have a competent backup for Marcel Reed.

Lots of people complain about Reed’s performances against Texas and Miami, but what if Reed doesn’t come back into the Texas game in the second quarter?

We’ve got no offense in that Texas game because Elko didn’t have an adequate backup.

Who’s backing up Reed in 2026?  Sure, there’s some young talent, but there’s not really anyone backing up Reed.  At least not anyone with real experience.

Meanwhile, the four teams that played for the national championship the last two seasons have done so with senior transfer quarterbacks.

The two seasons before that, the four teams were led by senior quarterbacks as well.

Right or wrong, he doesn’t seem concerned with his quarterback situation.

The hiring of Collin Klein as offensive coordinator was a mistake.  While Klein wasn’t terrible, his offense was very milquetoast.  Yes, milquetoast.

Klein relied on a power running game and effective tight ends.  When he didn’t have those, he didn’t have much.

Klein utilized Concepcion and Craver, but when defenses took those toys away with no Moss, that offense just sputtered around.

Elko just stood there and watched.

When he had to replace Klein, he tried to hire Brennan Marion, but Marion decided taking the same job at Colorado was a better opportunity.

There’s a belief Marion takes over from Coach Prime, but if I’m Elko, I’m selling the guy: you win at A&M, and you’ll find a much better head coaching gig than Colorado.

When Marion chose Colorado, Elko met with five other OC candidates and then promoted Wiggins.

Why wasn’t Wiggins the guy all along?

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think Elko is really clueless when it comes to the offensive side of the ball.

He can run my defense any day of the week, but as head coach you have to offer some guidance to the offense in real time.

At least you should for $11 million a year.

Weaknesses

I’ve obviously talked about some of Mike Elko’s weaknesses, but I want to bullet point the ones that stick out in my mind.

• For two seasons in a row, he hasn’t finished.  Even worse, he’s controlled his own destiny to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game and completely sputtered.
• He hired Jay Bateman for his defensive coordinator with no accountability.  It was so bad that Elko had to take over the reins of the defense for the 2025 season.  After Bateman, he just promoted from within and appears to have the same role going forward.
• The hiring of Collin Klein is questionable.  He didn’t appear to be on the hot seat at A&M. I believe KSU’s hiring of Klein forced Elko to make a move he wouldn’t have made on his own.  Klein wasn’t a great hire, and the Aggies lucked out by him going home.
• He has one signature win in two seasons at A&M.  He’s beaten a bunch of teams he should have beaten and lost to the teams he should have lost to.  He’s not found a way to beat better teams except at Notre Dame.  He’s really just kind of treading water.
• In two seasons, he has no viable backup quarterback, nor has he brought in another quarterback to truly push a quarterback that is questionable from a development standpoint.  He’s just gonna ride Marcel Reed for two seasons.  It’s not the worst strategy, but it’s questionable.
• In two games, Steve Sarkisian has owned his defense.  With Lane Kiffin in Baton Rouge, I have some concerns about Elko’s ability to handle Sark’s and Kiffin’s offenses.

It’s not a terribly long list of negatives, but there’s enough to keep me from thinking Mike Elko is not without reproach.

Like I said before, I in no way want Mike Elko fired.  I want it to be okay to question or have doubts.

I don’t know that I would have given him a four-million-dollar-a-year raise and extended years, but I understand we got scared, as we did with Jimbo.

I get agents run college football because ADs and other school leaders won’t stand up to them.  I would have waited until after the season before making any decision about Elko’s contract.

Elko wants to go to Penn State after two years at A&M and a berth in the CFP?  Good luck.  We’ll pay you when your coaching on the field outperforms your contract.  $7 million a year is plenty for a coach to live on.

We’ll use the extra $4 million for staff and NIL, which will help you win.  When you win a national championship, we’ll pay you the really big bucks.

I couldn’t help but think that in the first half of the South Carolina game, the timing of Elko’s extension was a disaster.

I hope it turns out differently, but right now, it looks like Mike Elko is like a handful of other college coaches.  They need a key coordinator opposite their strength and a great senior quarterback either from within the program or via transfer.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see a great Gameday coach on the Aggie sideline right now.

It doesn’t mean he can’t get there.  He needs to realize his offensive shortcomings and continue to evolve.

Let’s talk about some other things for the 2026 season.

Holmon Wiggins

I’ve talked about Wiggins a little already.

I have ZERO idea what to think of him as an offensive coordinator.

I would much rather roll the dice on him than bring Klein back for another season.  Klein’s ceiling was crystal clear. I do feel we dodged a bullet there even if Wiggins is a complete failure.

At least we tried something rather than having yet another year of a milquetoast offense.  Yes, milquetoast.

I do think there’s some promise here due to his time in Tuscaloosa and him being a receivers coach.

He was a running back in college, so he’s been an offensive guy for all of his football life.

He worked two seasons under Steve Sarkisian at Bama, which is a massive positive.  Sark is really a brilliant play designer.  I hope Wiggins took a lot of notes under Sark.

Wiggins spent two seasons under Bill O’Brien, which I see as a massive negative.  Just kidding.  O’Brien is a decent offensive mind, but far from as brilliant as Sark.

He spent one season under Tommy Rees, which was the year Jalen Milroe took Bama to the Rose Bowl.

He obviously spent two seasons under Collin Klein, which I hope he forgot anything he may have learned.

He also spent some time under Justin Fuente at Memphis and Va Tech.

There you go.  You know as much about Holman Wiggins as I and mostly everyone else does.

What little I watched of the Spring Game, it was mostly RPOs.  I’m fine with that as I don’t want to showcase anything unique in a meaningless scrimmage.

I hope each week he has a notebook of scribbled plays that are unique and nobody has seen before.

Hopefully, Wiggins is the next Joe Brady at least from a collegiate standpoint.

I have no clue, and neither does anyone else.

Offensive Line

The offensive line is easier to guess on.

Elko did a really nice job of bringing in talented guys.

It will all come down to whether Adam Cushing can get this unit to play as one and the players avoid injuries.

I’m a little torn on Cushing as a coach.  I know he gets high praise, and I do think he is a good coach.

I have to pause a bit on him as I watched our offensive line struggle so much against Texas and Miami last season.  Those games were really bad from an offensive line standpoint.  Especially pass blocking.

I get Texas and Miami have talent and good coaching, but man, that offensive line really struggled in those two games.

All four guys that left got drafted, so the NFL thinks it was a talented unit.  But they struggled in those two games.

The health issue of this unit in 2026 is more important than the coaching, especially with Tyree Adams.  He’s not made it through a full season.  You need your anchor left tackle to last all season.

This unit will be fine due to experience, but you never know.

If they don’t mesh or suffer injuries, it won’t matter what kind of play caller Wiggins is.

This offense will sputter.

Marcel Reed

When it comes to Marcel Reed, I’m torn.  I see the positives and the obvious negatives.

He was a guy that could have created his own invite to the Heisman had he shown out against Texas.  He obviously didn’t, and we go into 2026 with questions surrounding his play.

While he’s not a big guy, he’s physically talented.  He’s not Johnny Manziel, but he’s got some wiggle.  He struggles with accuracy at times, but he’s got a pretty decent arm.

He obviously makes some bone-headed decisions, especially in the end zone.  I know I’m hard on Klein, but man, how do you let that keep happening?

I get you can’t just run the ball near the goal line, but how can Reed be so blind to defenders in that space?  Was there no coaching to help avoid that?  It was a consistent problem all season, and it never went away.

It ultimately cost us a chance to send the Miami game to overtime.

As for Reed’s skill set, my hope is he makes a Jayden Daniels-type jump in 2026.  They’re somewhat similar quarterbacks, but Daniels was an elite runner.  Hopefully, Reed has added some more explosiveness to his running game in the offseason.

Don’t get me wrong.  Reed is a great runner.  He’s just not as elusive or explosive as the greats.  He can certainly wiggle and make people miss, but he often gets corralled or caught pretty quickly.  The great ones don’t get corralled or caught.

Reed’s strongest attribute is his ability to move in the pocket and buy time.  He’s got really good pocket awareness and knows where to move to buy time.

Like most quarterbacks, the more time Reed has to throw, the better he is.  Reed doesn’t need a super clean pocket and needs some space to move to.  He’ll move to it if it’s there.

That’s why he struggled so badly against Texas and Miami.  There was no space for him to move to.  I think that hurt his game more than anything.  The space he’d become accustomed to was gone.

He couldn’t buy time to find his receivers as the defensive secondary broke down.

All in all, Reed is a quarterback you can win a national championship with.  He’s just not going to win you a national championship like a Vince Young or Cam Newton.

Hopefully Wiggins develops him more than Klein did.

The Schedule

The 2026 Aggie Football schedule looks pretty daunting.  Welcome to the SEC.

Last year’s schedule looked daunting as well, but then it wasn’t.

It won’t happen, but I do think every game is winnable.  Not even close to easy wins, but there’s not a team on that schedule I believe is an automatic loss as I’ve believed in past seasons.

Bama and LSU aren’t who they used to be, but they’re still tough places to play.

The South Carolina game will be a lot tougher than most people think.  Beamer has been struggling as a head coach, but he’s got a pretty good team, and we’ve struggled in Columbia.

I want to think we don’t have issues with Arizona State, Kentucky, and Arkansas at Kyle, but you never know.

I have no clue what to think with Tennessee.  It seemed Heupel had that program humming two years ago, but they’ve cooled off a bit since then.

The parallels with us and OU rarely get discussed, but both programs are on similar trajectories heading into the 2026 season.  That game could mean a lot or nothing at all.

And then Texas comes to town.  I can’t help but think this will be Elko’s toughest test in 2026.  Sark has owned Elko in his first two seasons.

You can believe Arch Manning is over hyped, but the dude developed big time as last season went on.  I think he’s poised for a massive 2026 season.

Not saying we can’t beat Texas, but Elko has his work cut out to not only get a win against Texas, but also finish the regular season on a high note.

If his coaching isn’t up to it, it’s going to be another sour taste at the end.

Either way, I’m excited and ready for the 2026 season.

It’s cliché to say, but I do think the 2026 season will be the biggest of Elko’s career.

We’ll find out if the 2025 season was a building block or a blip.

Those who came before him always took a step back after a big season.

They fell backward and not forward.

I hope Elko is different.  I want him to get that statue outside of Kyle Field.

SPONSOR

The 2026 Aggie Football season will once again be brought to you by Old Smokey. It’s the lifetime disposable grill that’s been manufactured just North of Downtown Houston since 1950. When you need an affordable and reliable grill, Old Smokey is for you.