So, my semi-actual thoughts on this hire. My thoughts are…Elko’s OK? Which is good, because this was going to be the hire all along until Ross Bjork gave into the intrusive thoughts regarding Mike Stoops.
There’s no doubt Elko can run a defense, as he’s shown at every stop he’s been at. And he is not a “Chief” type DC on the downswing. He took Duke to 22 PPG in 2022 and this year is second in the ACC at 19 PPG.
HC chops, you have to give him an incomplete. Objectively, you have to say that anyone who gets Duke to a 9-4 record had a good year coaching. You’d have liked to see them hold or take a step forward this year to feel really good about him. He walked into a gift with Riley Leonard and you wonder how they’d be if he stayed healthy, Duke does not have a lot of depth. You can stay at Duke a long time at 7-5 and everyone is happy. From what he’s shown, he’s able to put a competitive team on the field, win most of the games he’s supposed to win, but there is a big step up to championship levels that most people don’t make and prior records at mid-tier schools aren’t a predictor. He hasn’t shown he can do that.
I do think there is a sense of urgency to keep some of the talent on campus (more later) and so that’s why assistant hires will be key here. It’s a no-brainer to leave Robinson in place if he’ll stay. He can coach the DL, he can recruit, and hopefully Elko taps him as DC with a lot of oversight. After that….a lot of meh. Addazzio needed to be gone last year. Durkin plays a different style and is an awful person. Petrino was a step up from Jimbo calling plays, but Elko needs to change culture and does he want Petrino knocking around Bright? Likely not.
The biggest issues that Elko faces is that he is walking into a worse situation than Jimbo in 2018. Less money. Lots of recent embarrassment. A toxic locker room culture. And Texas is coming with their dick swinging into the SEC instead of aimlessly floundering in a dying Big 12. Which means that if you want to get things past 8-4, you need to make some moves NOW before the narrative is written in stone. And a big part of that is, yes, keeping as much of the 2022 class around as you can. He’s fortunate the strength of the team will be on defense. His immediate job is to hit the portal for offensive linemen that can play now and for someone to fight with Henderson for QB2, and convince Weigman that he’s in better hands than he was with Jimbo. I think Evan Stewart is gone, but there will still be some good WR talent available.
And then he needs to do a couple things with the 2024 season. First, he’s got to win games on the road, which was Jimbo’s undoing. No losing stinkers in Starkville or Columbia and ideally you win one of Auburn or Florida. And you can’t lose to Arkansas. The toughest games next season are at home.
Second, he can’t get embarrassed at home. Aside from the cupcakes (no monster like App State looming), we get: Notre Dame, Mizzou, LSU, and Texas at home. We can easily go 0-4 against that slate, and if we do it’s going to be a big hole to climb out of because that means we likely also are taking some bad road losses. He really needs to get one good win from that group and can’t get blown out in the others. Ideally, he manages to take down Mizzou and one of LSU or Texas and then everyone will forget the growing pains with Notre Dame.
I am not optimistic that happens. If he manages to get us to 9 wins including a bowl, I think that’s close to the ceiling and will give him some breathing room. But we can just as easily lose all four of those and drop a couple on the road and finish 6-6 and if that happens then he might never get the opening he needs to really build something.