Editor's Note: This is one part of a three-part series examining three of MSU's top candidates for its football head coach position. Brendan Moore looks at Duke's Mike Elko, Chase Glasser discusses Kansas' Lance Leipold, and Jeremy Dewar breaks down Oregon State's Jonathan Smith. For the latest intel, be sure to click through to our Spartans Illustrated Message Board where we share the latest information (subscribers).
In this author's opinion, current Duke head coach Mike Elko is the best candidate for the Michigan State head coaching job. Elko is a defensive mastermind, which fits well into Michigan State’s identity as a football program.
Spartans Illustrated reported late last week that Elko was one of the candidates to progress to the second round of interviews with Michigan State. With the way things are currently trending, and based off of the intel Spartans Illustrated has gathered, Elko is a strong candidate and is near the top of the list for Michigan State.
Elko has improved each defense he’s coached as a coordinator. Elko spent five years as the defensive coordinator at Bowling Green from 2009 through 2013. The Falcons were 87th in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) in total defense in Elko’s first season there, and in his fifth season, Bowling Green was 10th in the country in total defense.
Another impressive improvement that Elko was responsible for was turning around the Texas A&M passing defense. In Elko’s first season as the defensive coordinator in College Station in 2018, the Aggies had one of the worst passing defenses in Power Five football (107th in FBS). By the time Elko was in his fourth season, Texas A&M ranked 19th in passing defense in the country. He also coached the No. 2 rushing defense in 2018 and 2020 while at Texas A&M.
Elko not only was an elite defensive coordinator, but he turned around the Duke football program as a head coach. In December of 2021, Elko took over a three-win team and proceeded to win nine games in year one in Durham in 2022, the most wins Duke has had in a single season since 2014. He currently holds a 6-5 record in 2023 on a team that has suffered a boatload of injuries, including one to star quarterback Riley Leonard.
One edge that Elko has over other candidates, especially Oregon State's Jonathan Smith, is that he has ties to the Big Ten footprint. Elko played college football at the University of Pennsylvania, and has coached at Midwest schools like Bowling Green and Notre Dame.
Elko is also a great recruiter. He currently has the No. 34 class for 2024, according to Rivals. It is hard to recruit to Duke — an institution that has high academic standards and that is better known for its basketball program — but Elko is doing a phenomenal job of doing so. If that class finishes at No. 34 or better, that will be Duke’s highest rated class since 2016. That would also be Duke’s second top-40 class since Rivals started ranking recruiting classes in 2002.
Elko also understands how to hire a good staff. Obviously, the recruiting rankings speak for the recruiting staff, but his hire of Kevin Johns as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach was incredibly underrated. Johns has coached numerous explosive offenses at Texas Tech and Memphis before getting hired by Elko at Duke. If Elko gets the Michigan State job, it's not a given that he will hire Johns as his offensive coordinator, but it would certainly be a good option, and his ability to hire a good staff is apparent.
On the defensive side of the ball, Tyler Santucci is a promising young defensive coordinator (35 years old) who currently has Duke third in the ACC in scoring defense (19.8 points per game), fifth in passing defense (203.1 passing yards per game) and seventh in total defense (358.8 yards allowed per game).
The 46-year old Elko has all the tools to become a really good head coach.
Recruiting? Check.
Ability to rebuild a program? Check.
Ability to hire a good staff? Check.
Hiring Elko as the next head coach for the Spartans is a really good option that is also realistic for MSU AD Alan Haller.
MORE: The case for Kansas' Lance Leipold as Michigan State's football coach
MORE: The case for Oregon State's Jonathan Smith as Michigan State's football coach
