The Josh Innes Show - Mike Elko Smokes the CFB Media

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

I appreciate Mike Elko calling about the media folks about their reporting on job openings. I didn't know that Mike Elko went to Penn. Perhaps I should have known that. That said, leaving A&M for Penn State would be dumb. Would Matt Rhule be making a lateral move if he went from Nebraska to Penn State? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. Let's see. What do we have here? The Blue Jays are going to the World Series, thanks to George Springer, which good for him, man. Always a likable guy. I know that we actually dumped on him before game six. Was it game six or game seven of the ALCS in 2017 against the Yankees? We dumped on him because he said hitting is hard. And we made fun of that. I'm like, yeah, we're aware hitting is hard. But it's your job to hit. being a cop is hard but if your job is to be a cop go be a cop but um he was the hero and it's a great story for him and we talked about it earlier a little bit but man there are these dudes that played for the astros in that era the jeff luno dudes clutch just postseason monsters i mean just look at them down the line they're just clutch studs man and and there it was for springer to hit the big shot there so that was awesome i didn't really watch a ton of the game i saw it on another TV. I was in the bar, as I told you, and I saw it on one of the other TVs. But anyway, let me play a couple commercials, but I want to get to some audio from the locker room.

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Like, I've heard people say, like, why isn't there like sparky type audio for you in Detroit? Like, when they made the, because Sparky ain't in Detroit, brother. Like, Sparky is Sparky, and I miss that. Like, I didn't do anything with that bit. Like, people give me credit for that, and they're like, man, that's a. a great bit, Sparky in the clubhouse and Sparky's getting wet. Well, yeah, because Sparky did all that. I literally just played the audio and we laughed at it and had a good time.

But one of the, there was a situation in the locker room last night where, or in the clubhouse, as it were, in the clurb, in a clurb house. But so here's the situation. So a gentleman by the name of Brian Wu, who plays for the. the for the Mariners. You know who he is, especially if you live in Houston. You know who he is. And he's being interviewed in the locker room after the game. And there is a gentleman that I would presume as a player from his team that you can hear in the background who is like super upset about the outcome of this game, I would imagine, which rightfully so. I mean, you may never get back to this point again. They were a handful of outs away from going to the World Series.

And this is this audio. It's actually spectacular. I hear. you go. Having gone to further than any other team in franchise history.

That legacies So that was that scream I talked about this today

that scream actually sounds like the beginning of of cherry pie when you hear

the beginning of cherry pie and you get the dirty rotten filthy stink it it kind of

sounds like it let me see here if I can Is this the right audio? Hold on it. That's not the right audio.

But the point being is that I enjoyed that. Like, you can't tell if this audio that you're hearing here is from the beginning of Cherry Pie or if it's from that guy screaming. See? Boy, that must be painful. Like, that was like a Bob and LaBomba scream. Like, we almost got, Richard. Not my Ritchie! Loud noises!

I do feel bad for him. Although I didn't watch enough of the game and I don't really feel bad for Seattle because I wanted them to lose. But a painful day. That's what the Texans fans feel like all the time. Dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking, rich. Ah, boy, but, yeah, that, I got some other audio. Let me see what I got here. I got an audio dump here, some audio that I didn't use.

Let's see, we got Mike Elko. So Mike Elko, who's the coach at Texas A&M, you talk about a guy that just fits a certain place. Like, that is a homely looking fat guy. Like, their janky gas station, Adidas gear. Like, everything about it makes sense with Mike Elko. That man has a gut, just a firm bowling bowl. gut he has. But here is Mike Elko.

Now, we're talking about coaching now, the coaching carousel. And somehow Mike Elko's name came up at Penn State. Now, I don't know all of Mike Elko's backstory. So perhaps Mike Elko, like, has history in that part of the country. I don't know. He's probably from Jersey. So there's that. Like, that guy does not look like he'd be from Jersey.

Like, if you told me there's Mike Elko, I would tell you that Mike Elko is just a southern dude. He has really embraced it and authentically. Like Brian Kelly went down and put on his family and then there was nothing authentic about it. If I looked at Mike Elko, and I'm aware that he coached at Duke and I get all that. But if you look at Mike Elko, he looks like a dude that would coach Texas A&M. It is an authentic look about him. Yet if you look at his entire track record as a coach, I had no idea that all of this was up in the Northeast.

I knew Duke. But like Notre Dame, Wake Forest, Hofstra, Richmond, Penn. I had no idea. And he went and he, well, there you go. Okay, now it makes sense. I did not know these details. See if I would have known these details beforehand. That would have been helpful.

That the guy actually went to Penn. He's a smart guy. He's a Quaker. But just because you coached at Penn, doesn't mean you're going to coach at Penn State. A man's an Ivy Leagueer, though. That's a smart dude. You talk about a dude that doesn't look as smart as he is?

Again, it's something about wearing Maroon Adidas gas station gear that makes everybody look folksy. Now, then again, like Jimbo Fisher just is folksy. Like he sounds like a dufus and he is a dufus. He's very rich dufus, but he's a dufus. You look at Mike Elko and you're like, this dude is really smart, but he downplays it. It's like you wouldn't know that Adam Sandler is rich

because the guy wears like six extra large fuboo basketball shorts all the time, so you wouldn't know that he's rich. That's like Mike Elko. You wouldn't know that Mike Elko is an Ivy Leagueer just by looking at Mike Elko. So now it kind of makes some sense that Mike Elko, his name would be tossed around just a little bit, being that, again, he did graduate from Penn He's from Jersey.

What part of Jersey? Where's South Brunswick? Is that North Jersey or South Jersey? You South Jersey? No, that's more of a New York one. So he's more of a New York guy that graduated from Penn, Ivy Leagueer, coached at Penn, all that stuff. And Mike Elko had some things to say about the folks in the media and their speculations about coaches. And then there's multiple national reports out that you're a possible candidate for the Penn State job.

I'm just curious your thoughts on that. handle your name being linked to that kind of job and if that's something you even discuss with your players uh i don't discuss it with my players i think it's absolutely hilarious how you guys cover coaches i think three weeks ago i was getting fired um now i'm getting hired now i god you don't want me to stay but i'm like it's just it's absolutely hilarious it is a waste of brain space to spend any time talking or thinking about any of that stupidity he's right and the problem is we're in this era now where you have to always always be in speculation mode because real media people, legitimate media people. And I still give some

sort of credibility to people who are media members of reputable outlets. Although, again, bloggers and podcasters and everybody else, I mean, they have value. I'm not saying they don't. I'm not saying that some of them don't do good stuff. Many of them do. But I still, like, there's a credibility and a certain criteria that you have to meet to be involved with, you know, legit media outlets. You don't have to like them and we can think they're dopes, but there is a standard for being part of that. So there's a credibility and speculation and all that. But what's happening is a lot of these outlets are now having to compete with these blogs. And now that they have to compete with these blogs, and these, I say blogs, like, what year is this?

They compete with websites and podcasts and everything else that they have to get into the speculation and click baity business too. So even the reputable people now, or the quote-unquote reputable. people have to dig around in the mud and come up with these things. If I am Mike Elko, there is a 0% chance that I would leave Texas A&M to coach Penn State. There is no place, there's no universe where Penn State is a better job than Texas A&M. Well, Josh, what about they're battling with Texas? Sure they are. Texas A&M, though, with the resources they have, the money they have, the fan base they have,

there is no reason why Texas A&M shouldn't be a consistent playoff team. It's a different world. This isn't a world where you lose one game and you're not in the BCS championship. They're going to expand this playoff to the point where there's so many teams that we're going to hate it, but they're going to do it. So you're going to have openings and opportunities, and you're down in Texas, you've got a rich talent base there. You've got 100,000 people at every game. You've got tons of money. They've got so much money, in fact, that they're still paying off like $75 million for Jimbo, which I get Penn States doing the same thing, too.

But it's just not, like, Penn State to me is an okay job. Like, it's a nice job. It's, I mean, look, it's a very prestigious job. But it was made that way by one person who coached there for 50 years. Other than that, it's just been kind of, oh, there's Bill O'Brien, okay, and then there's, I mean, look, it's like the, it's like the Steelers. I've been three guys that have coached there for the last 60, 70 years. But I would, like, assuming that there's, like, there's smoke, fire, whatever. Now, I see a much greater likelihood.

Like, if I'm Matt Rule, and I've got the. the option to go to Penn State. But here's the other thing. Like, Nebraska historically has been a power. They haven't been for the last quarter century. But, like, it's not like this is some program that sucked forever. Nebraska's a pretty good program historically. National championship program historically. 100,000 people strong at every game historically. People spend money historically. But there's something like that's not sexy about that program now. Like, is Penn State a better job or is it a lateral move? Really, it comes down to money and resources.

I don't know why Nebraska, and I don't know what all their resources are. I don't focus on Nebraska football all that much or just the University of Nebraska in general. But to me, it seems like a lateral move. And the same thing, like when I see the Florida job. Like, I can understand if you would leave Mississippi State to go to Florida. Like, to me, that's not a lateral move, right? I mean, that's what Dan Mullen did. Dan Mullen left Mississippi State and went to Florida, right?

That's not a lateral move. That's a giant step up in pay and in resources. But, like, we talked about Lane Kiffin. Why would Lane Kiffin leave the place he's built? Like, name another historic Ole Miss coach, like, of the last 30, 40 years. Like, obviously they have, I forgot who they're big, Johnny something or another. Johnny Majors, no, it's not Johnny Majors. Vaught, I don't know.

Like, I don't even know who historically is the all-time great Ole Miss coach, right? But in this era, they haven't had one. I mean, keep in mind, Ole Miss had Coach O. You know, Ole Miss had Houston nut. Ole Miss had David Cutcliffe. It was a very good offensive coach, but it's David Cutcliffe. And Hugh Freeze before, you know, his boners got in the way. But Ole Miss is a great gig.

Like, to me, you'd be stupid to leave Ole Miss where it can be your job forever. Like, I say that. I mean, look, you go three and nine a couple times. I'll fire you. But, like, that's a good gig. And you've built that gig. They love you there. You can go to the playoffs there.

You can compete with Alabama there. You've built something awesome there. You are the guy. I don't think, like, I don't know that Florida has more resources than Ole Miss. Ole Miss has money. Might Florida have some more, maybe. But, like, I don't see a huge disparity. I don't see a universe where, like,

Ole Miss is that much different than Florida. And Florida's let that program erode over the last 15 years. And they fired, I think, now four coaches. over the last 12 or 13 years. Like, there are, like, Ole Miss is not as good of a job as LSU. LSU is a premier job. Florida used to be, Florida basically had one good, two good coaches,

Spurrier and Urban Meyer over the last 40 years. But Florida has let the program erode. So then, like, I don't know, man. I'd stay at Ole Miss. Like, I keep seeing stories that the only place Lane may leave for is LSU. And I would get that. Like, it is a premier school and a talent-rich state and all sorts of money.

and it is a great gig. But I don't think that gig's going to be open. People I've talked to said it's not going to be. Now, whether it is or not, we'll see. Right now it's not open. But if they get waxed by A&M, which they're only like a point dog, I think, or something at home. But let's say they get worked by A&M. This feels like this could be a situation like last year where LSU had all the hype and went into A&M and lost.

This could be a situation where they come into LSU all jacked up, top three team in the country. Maybe they lose. Could be. I mean, the spread's like damn near even. So we'll see. But I don't know, man. I think Penn State's a fine job. And if you're someone like, I don't think you're leaving another great job to go to Penn State.

And there are a lot of jobs that are great now that weren't great before because of the way NIL works and the money works and the college football playoff works. Like is Matt and now Matt Rule's got history at Penn State. He's a Pennsylvania guy. So there's a lot that would make sense about that for him. That could be a going home type of thing. But if it's just straight up job for job, I don't know that Penn State is an exponentially better or even if it is a better job than Nebraska. And if it is, it could be very slight. But the plane, you know, with your home base and everything is part of that.

The home part, the home cooking makes a big difference. Anyway, more to come.