Duke’s New Football Coach: Mike Elko

We don’t know a whole lot about Mike Elko yet but Duke’s next football coach seems impressive.

Until Monday the defensive coordinator for Jimbo Fischer at Texas A&M, Elko did a bang-up job with the Aggies defense over the last several years. He also spent time at Notre Dame and Wake Forest.

His challenges at Duke will include the administrative things head coaches have to do, finding an offensive coordinator, recruiting and dealing with Duke’s academics. He has some awareness of what it’s like at a school with demanding admissions, having coached at Notre Dame and Wake Forest, but Duke presents some different challenges.

Having said that, David Cutcliffe left the overall enterprise in much better shape than he found it and getting things back to a reasonably competitive level won’t be nearly as hard for Elko as it was for Cutcliffe.

We’ll learn more over the next few days. For now, let’s welcome Coach Elko and wish him the best as he takes over the Duke football program.

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