Mike Elko details growth by Texas A&M secondary in fall camp

Long since considered one of the best defensive minds in college football, Texas A&M Aggies head coach Mike Elko takes pride in putting the best possible defense on the field. At the same time, last season, the secondary failed to live up to those expectations in many respects.

Now, a year later and with a year more of experience, Elko is happy with how the secondary is coming along during Fall Camp. They have more experience now, and communication is improving on the backend ahead of the 2025 season.

“Five practices in last year, I wouldn’t have told you we would be in the spot we were,” Mike Elko said. “I think what is noticeable is there’s a much better comfort level playing together. When you just talk about communication lines and when you’re familiar and comfortable playing with the guy next to you, it makes it a lot easier to communicate through the difficult concepts and combinations that get thrown at you.”

In 2024, Texas A&M had the 90th-ranked passing defense in the country, giving up 232.2 passing yards per game. That mark was good for just 13th in the SEC. They’d also give up 20 passing touchdowns, which was tied for 74th nationally. More positively, the Aggies had 16 interceptions, which was tied for 14th nationally.

“When you talk about Will Lee IV, Bryce Anderson, Dalton Brooks, Marcus Ratcliffe, and Dezz Ricks, that group of kids now has played a lot of football together between fall camps, spring ball, the season. You certainly see an uptick in their familiarity with each other. Then you see the new guys getting comfortable with the system, the communications, the schemes, and you see that happening at a faster rate because there are guys who are more comfortable with it,” Elko said.

“When everybody’s trying to figure it out together, it’s hard. When there are some experienced guys who can talk through things with guys who are less experienced, that speeds up the process. I think you’re seeing that happen, and we’ll see where it goes as we go through the rest of camp.”

Mike Elko will certainly need to get the passing defense in order. The Aggies have several vaunted passing attacks coming up on the 2025 schedule. That includes a trip to South Bend to take on Notre Dame, before entering SEC play. There, Texas A&M sees Auburn‘s excellent wide receivers, DJ Lagway and Florida, Garrett Nussmeier and LSU, as well as LaNorris Sellers and South Carolina, while finishing the season against Arch Manning and Texas.