R.C. Slocum admires how Mike Elko is managing his first A&M team

A member of the College Football Hall of Fame, the legendary R.C. Slocum was the last defensive-minded head coach at Texas A&M before Mike Elko's arrival ahead of the 2024 season. Slocum spoke to TexAgs Radio to discuss the new head man and much more.

Key notes from R.C. Slocum interview

• I am good! I’ve been working out a little bit. I played some golf in July when I went on vacation. Our course is under repair right now, so I haven’t played much. It’s also 100 degree temperatures, so that might be a factor too.
   
• I’m really excited about this Texas A&M team. I like Mike Elko. I think he’s really smart. I think he’s a good guy and a straight shooter. I think there is a high level of accountability with the players. I think he has put together a really good coaching staff, so I am optimistic about this season. I don’t know how many games we’re going to win this season, but I’m optimistic about where we are and where we’re going.
   
• I won’t comment on where we were. I will say unequivocally how excited I am about where we are now and where we’re headed.
   
• What I like about Elko is he is a defensive-minded head coach, but I’ve been out to practice to see him filling the role of the head coach. I see him move around at practice. He sees all the tapes and all the drills in practice. He’s the head coach of our whole team. I admire that. I know there are other people who do it other ways successfully, but in the big picture, I’ve always felt that the head coach should be the head coach. If you want to be the quarterback coach, be the quarterback coach. If you want to be the linebacker coach, be the linebacker coach. If you want to be the head coach, then that’s your team that’s out there.
   
• I told one of our head coaches that when the team is out on the field, that’s your team. Special teams, the offense, the defense. The whole thing. If you’re on the sideline looking at a big old play chart, there’s a whole game going on out there, and it’s your team. Someone needs to be evaluating what’s going on out there, so when it comes time to go for it on fourth down or punt or air it out a little bit, you're the one who can do something about it. You need to be using your ability to analyze what’s going on with your team.
   
• Sometimes, you can get into a game and realize you can’t slow a team down. You have to air it out and take some chances or some things. You also might be able to see the opponent won’t be able to score many points, so you can play to win the thing by protecting the ball and punting it to play defense. You make those decisions like a guy running a company would be looking at the whole picture. This is Elko’s team. I admire the way he is managing his team.
   
• I’m encouraged by Conner Weigman. He looks like he has gotten stronger. I’ve talked to people out there. He has been on a good program out there. It looks like he has put on a little weight and some strength. He looks pretty good out there. We also have two or three other guys that look pretty good too. It’s a good quarterback room.
   
• That’s the way good defensive lines look. We pass the eye test. We’ve got some big, physical guys that can move.
   
• Taurean York is into it. He plays hard, practices hard and has good movement. He has all the tools. He’s a good player and a good kid, and that’s a big comparison with Dat Nguyen because Dat is an exceptional person.
   
• As far as the Notre Dame game being one that’s low-scoring, I don’t have any idea. They’ll be a really good team, so this is a great test for us. One of the things I believe is having to get ready for a really good opponent in your first game is good for your team. We better be good coming out of the chute. We’re playing a good team, and I think that’ll be good for our mental and physical preparation as well as our season as we go through.
   
• As I look back on the 1998 game against Florida State, maybe I wasn’t too smart for scheduling that one. They called me in the spring about playing in that game, and I asked, “Who would be playing?” They said they didn’t know yet, but I said, “Yeah, we’ll play.” When they called back, they said nobody else wanted to play us because we were expected to be pretty good. Florida State agreed to play, but they were preseason No. 2 and had everybody coming back. I said that was OK. We were trying to get exposure for A&M and our program, and we had an opportunity to take a bunch of young people to New York and play on national television against another really good team. That was a no-brainer for me. The day before the game, I took the kids and got them the throwaway cameras. We got out in Haarlem, Madison Square Garden, the World Trade Center, the United Nations, on a boat out to the Statue of Liberty and practiced on the Jersey shore. We played really well. Peter Warrick made a big play on a punt return and made a great catch in the end zone. That was kind of a horse and a horse. We could have easily won that game. The preparation and having played someone really good helped us as we went through the year and won a championship.