Fisher, Not NIL, Deserves Credit For No. 1 Class, Former Assistant Says

Duke coach and former Texas A&M defensive coordinator Mike Elko praised his one-time boss' recruiting prowess

Jimbo Fisher isn’t asking for or doesn’t need anyone to come to his defense when it comes to justifying Texas A&M’s top-rated recruiting class. The Aggies coach went off with both barrels on any critics who questioned his methods earlier this month.

But it’s got to make Fisher feel good to hear his former defensive coordinator sound off on the topic.

“For whatever reason, people don’t want to give [Fisher] the credit that he deserves for the job that he does,” Mike Elko said on a recent Saturday Down South podcast. “It’s not just money. Texas A&M is a really special place across the board. Jimbo signed the No. 1 recruiting class in the country to Texas A&M. When you do that, you deserve praise. Point blank. To look at it any other way is unfair.

"It takes so much work, it takes so many people, it takes an effort from such a large group to do that. To try to turn this into any other story, to me, just isn’t right. I think it deserves a ton of praise that he was able to go out and land the class that he did.”

Elko, now Duke’s head coach, should know. As one of Fisher’s top recruiters, Elko did his part in bringing a class to College Station that includes 13 members of the SI99 rankings.

The idea that the Aggies “bought” the No. 1 class armed with an NIL war chest stuck deep in Fisher’s craw. Fisher extolled the virtues of Texas A&M as the main reason the Aggies out-recruited the likes of Georgia and Alabama, as well as the rest of the college football world.

"The people is the key to A&M," Fisher said on Signing Day. "All these buildings, it ain't that. It's the people. The relationships that are here, the genuineness that is here, and sincerity that is here in this organization."

It appears Elko feels the same way.

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