Mike Elko Pinpoints Exactly What Is Holding Texas A&M Offense Back

Mike Elko has seen enough to know Texas A&M’s offensive problems won’t be solved by one simple fix.

Sep 12, 2026; College Station, Texas, USA; Texas A&M Aggies head coach Mike Elko watches warm ups prior to the game against Arizona State Sun Devils at Kyle Field. Mandatory Credit: Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

College football loves a good scapegoat.

For Texas A&M, Marcel Reed has entered into the fold as the chief scapegoat for all of the Aggies’ offensive troubles. It’s not an assertion that’s made blindly, of course. Reed has struggled immensely in the early going of the 2026 campaign, failing to live up to the expectation that he’d take a step forward in his final season in College Station.

But Reed isn’t the only issue, at least according to head coach Mike Elko. There’s a deeper problem causing the Aggies to struggle when they have the ball, and it’s not something that can be placed entirely on one player.

“I think it is a little bit of everything. I think we have to do a better job of creating explosive plays,” Elko said. “A lot of that is finding better leverage and creating better opportunities to be able to do that.”

Texas A&M Is Making Offense Too Difficult

Aggies Quarterback Marcel Reed 10, The LSU Tigers take on the Texas A&M Aggies | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Any good offense is built on one simple principle: consistency. While there are units capable of thriving in choppy waters, hitting enough explosive plays to make up for everything that happens in between, it’s extremely difficult to live that way against good defenses, particularly in the SEC.

Texas A&M is experiencing that firsthand.

“We are having to be too precise, and you know obviously that last game was a really poor game but even before that we are having to be too precise,” Elko said. “We have got to make sure that we are developing a rhythm of what our kids can do comfortably and try to create a little more flow to it.”

That might be the best explanation for what has gone wrong over the last four weeks.

The Aggies beat Missouri State 50-0 in the first game of the season, which was a tad bit deceiving given that some of the issues Elko has pointed out were present in that contest. The same goes for the win over Arizona State the next week. Texas A&M was talented enough to overcome those problems against the Bears and Sun Devils, but that certainly wasn’t the case when SEC competition began against Kentucky and LSU.

The Margin for Error Is Up in Flames

The margin for error disappeared, and suddenly every negative play mattered more. A successful run or completion would put the Aggies in position to build something, only for a tackle for loss or incompletion to immediately send the offense backward. It was demoralizing, and it was obvious that it wasn’t just the fans in the stands or sitting on their couches who were disappointed. The players and coaches were, too.

“We’re so choppy right now, it’s a good play followed up by a TFL or it’s a good play followed up with an incompletion,” Elko said. “We just have to figure out was to creatively stay ahead of the chains and move the football.”

Reed certainly has to play better, and his struggles are impossible to ignore. But the larger problem is that Texas A&M has created an offense that often requires him to be nearly perfect just to keep a possession alive.

The last two games have shown exactly what happens when that already-small margin for error disappears.

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