Until Mike Elko and this year's Texas A&M staff's surge as one of the top teams in college football this season, leading to a new contract for the Aggies leader, when people heard "Texas A&M" and "contract" in the same sentence it was only natural for the initial thought to be the guaranteed contract awarded to former head coach Jimbo Fisher that came with a record-breaking buyout of $75 million when the two parties ultimately parted ways.
When initially hired to replace Fisher, Elko inked a six-year deal that paid him $7 million annually in base salary with incentives to push that significantly higher, and within the past week Elko inked a new six-year contract that will put him among the five highest paid coaches in college football.
Unselfishly, with that new deal, tElko wanted to make sure his assistant coaches were taken care of with this new contract, and yesterday he talked about why that was important to him.
"It was never going to be about me. It was never going to get stuck on what I wanted. It was about the commitment to the program, to the staff, to the support staff, to the auxiliary staff, and to the players and making sure that we could run this program in a way that will continue to chase championships year in and year out," Elko shared, noting that when he first arrived they weren't in a position to make those type of commitments, but is thankful they're now able to do so.
"One of the biggest things that we were able to get done is a bonus structure for the assistants that's similar to the bonus structure that I have. I thought one of the things that was not right was the bonus structure that I was going to receive - had we qualified for the playoffs - that was not on par with what the assistants got. Certainly I am not more valuable to this team than they are."
"So we were able to get that done, and it will go into effect immediately, so that if this thing continues and we get rewarded with a playoff berth, those coaches that were a huge part of it, will get rewarded at a very similar level, and that was really important to me."
Here's to hoping that Elko starts a trend among some of the top paid coaches in college football with that move.