"Texas A&M has all the light bulbs installed": Josh Pate on Mike Elko's team being a top contender for the national championship 

Texas A&M enters a new era under Mike Elko in the 2024 college football season. Following its first season in the Southeastern Conference, the program has struggled to assert itself as a contender within the conference, despite the amount of input it's getting from different areas.

However, CBS Sports' Josh Pate believes the program is set for success despite its struggles over the years. The analyst contended that the Aggies have done well to get the right things in place to win the national championship as a program. He argued it just needs someone who can sail in the right direction at this point:

“Texas A&M has all the light bulbs installed. Texas A&M has everything that possibly needs to be plugged in. They just need the switch flipped," Pate said. "There's a lot of disagreement I get on this by the way. I'm a believer that Texas A&M is a ready-made championship contending program.”

Josh Pate believes there's a transition at Texas A&M

Only a few college football enthusiasts believe the Aggies are ready to become a top contender in college football, especially with the current strength of the SEC. However, Pate believes that the program is currently on a new track with Mike Elko who could get things right:

“What Texas A&M is as a program right now has not always been. The post-Manziel era has totally transformed what that program is. If you're talking about money, if you're talking about access to talent, if you're talking about resource pool, salary pool, facilities…

“If those are all there and I'm an A&M fan, I don't care what anyone else says. That's fine, it's all the more fun to be doubted but someone has to flip the switch for us. Hopefully, that was the hiring of Mike Elko.”

Mike Elko had a successful tenure in his previous stop at Duke. In what was his first head coaching job, Elko transformed the Blue Devils into a contender in the Atlantic Coast Conference. This got him a lot of respect in the landscape and he has to replicate that in College Station.

Elko was previously a defensive coordinator for four years at the program during the reign of Jimbo Fisher. He returns having prior knowledge of many things about the program as well as valuable head coaching experience with the Duke Blue Devils.

This presents him as a potentially brilliant candidate to take the Aggies to the next level in the college football world. There’s a lot of anticipation among the program's fans on what the 2024 season would look like.

Do you agree with Josh Pate that the Aggies will be successful next season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.