What to know about potential Penn State head coaching candidate Mike Elko
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Penn State seeks a coach who can lead the program to its first national title.
- Mike Elko built strong defenses at Duke and Texas A&M and remains 8-0 in 2025.
- Key obstacles: convincing Elko to leave an 8-0 program and offer championship resources.
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Penn State is in the throes of its head coaching search, and candidates have begun to trickle out. There have already been twists and turns with Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule and Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti inking extensions at their current schools.
The Nittany Lions and athletic director Pat Kraft will be looking for a candidate that can lead the football program to a national title for the first time in nearly 40 years, and Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko’s name is one that’s been prevalent over the past few weeks.
James Franklin, who was fired on Oct. 12, failed to achieve those title aspirations and only led the team to the College Football Playoff once. This season’s team, which is now 3-6 with no wins against Power Four opponents, was supposed to contend for a title and entered the year as the No. 2 team in the country in the AP top 25, but instead will be the last of the Franklin era and could struggle to make a bowl game.
Despite that, Franklin had plenty of success in his tenure and will be difficult to replace. So who will do it? We’re taking a look at the potential candidates throughout the process, with Elko up next.
Short, but successful, tenure as head coach
Elko is in his second season as Texas A&M’s head coach, and fourth overall with the initial two coming at Duke, and has had a good amount of success in that time. He was 16-9 in his two years at Duke and led Texas A&M to an 8-5 record in his first year, but has taken off in his second. Elko and the Aggies are 8-0 and came in at No. 3 in the country in the initial College Football Playoff rankings. His success in College Station comes after the program began to suffer a swift downturn under former head coach Jimbo Fisher. And he did the same with the Blue Devils after it struggled late in David Cutcliffe’s tenure at head coach.
While Elko may not be the most experienced candidate, his track record is strong and the 48-year-old has not had a losing season as a head coach. And the two locations he’s succeeded at prove he can do it at different types of programs. Duke has traditionally been a doormat in the ACC and has lacked resources, while A&M has been well-funded but has struggled to get over the hump. There is little doubt that he could have success at Penn State and in the Big Ten, based on what he’s already accomplished.
Strong defensive background
The head coaching record may be short, but Elko has a long history of success as a defensive coordinator. He first became a DC at the FBS level in 2009 when he took the role at Bowling Green until his departure after 2013. In his final season, he had the defense up to No. 51 in the country in Bill Connelly’s SP+, a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. He then went on to Wake Forest for three years, where he took the unit to No. 32 in the country by the time he departed for Notre Dame after 2016, where he spent one season with the No. 15 ranked defense in SP+.
His last four years as a defensive coordinator were at Texas A&M from 2018-2021, where, by the time he left following the 2021 season, his unit led the team with the No. 7 defense in the country. Elko has a history of building elite defenses, although it would be interesting to see how involved he would be with that side of the ball as the head coach at a place like Penn State.
Potential hiring issues
The holdup with Elko is simple — would he want the job, and would Penn State be able to make it worth his while to leave College Station for State College. There are some benefits for Elko, who is from New Jersey and went to Penn, where he played football and then coached for one season in 2000. But those ties alone are unlikely to be enough. The Nittany Lions and Kraft would have to show Elko that he will have a better quality of life and better chance of winning a national title than somewhere he’s currently 8-0 with the No. 3 team in the country.
Money and location could help do the first part, but it will be much tougher to do the second. In fact, it will likely take Elko and the Aggies losing a couple of games down the stretch for this to become a realistic possibility. That would both make it less likely he makes a deep playoff run, allowing Penn State to make a push for him sooner, and create window for the Nittany Lions to offer him championship-level resources. Elko may be the top target for the job right now, but that does not guarantee he’ll even accept the opportunity if it’s offered.
