{"id":464210,"date":"2026-10-13T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/464210\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T00:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T00:00:15","slug":"texas-ams-mike-elko-apologizes-for-cesspool-comment-criticism-of-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/464210\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas A&#038;M&#8217;s Mike Elko apologizes for &#8216;cesspool&#8217; comment, criticism of fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                    Elko drew backlash for his characterization of a section of the Aggies&#8217; fan base following Saturday&#8217;s 21-point loss to Missouri<\/p>\n<p>                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/writers\/austin-nivison\/\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" alt=\"            Austin Nivison&#10;    \" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/austinn500.png\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"40\" width=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>    Oct 12, 2026<\/p>\n<p>                    at<\/p>\n<p>    6:50 pm ET<\/p>\n<p>                \u2022<\/p>\n<p>            1 min read<\/p>\n<p>It took about 48 hours for Mike Elko to walk back his criticism of <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-football\/teams\/TXAM\/texas-am-aggies\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s<\/a> online fan base in the wake of a lopsided 27-6 loss to <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-football\/teams\/MIZZOU\/missouri-tigers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Missouri<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In his postgame press conference on Saturday, Elko referred to &#8220;Billy&#8217;s cesspool&#8221; when differentiating the fan base at large from those who criticize the Aggies on social media. It was a thoughtless answer that drew plenty of justified criticism across <a href=\"https:\/\/cbssports.com\/college-football\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">college football<\/a> media, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-football\/news\/college-football-week-6-scores-takes-georgia-texas-a-m-lsu-texas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">including CBS Sports&#8217; Brandon Marcello<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Elko apologized to the fans and to Billy Liucci, the co-owner of the popular TexAgs fan site.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think in the heat of the moment, I answered a question in a way that I certainly regret,&#8221; Elko said during his press conference. &#8220;I think everybody knows I have a tremendous relationship with Billy. I appreciate Billy. I appreciate him being here today. There&#8217;s nothing about Billy and I that have ever been off since 2018. I think everybody knows I appreciate our fan base and everything that they&#8217;re about and everything that they mean to Texas A&amp;M.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And outside of that, I&#8217;ll leave it alone. I regret the way it was taken. I regret the way it came out. I regret the way it ran. And so that certainly was never my intention.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Elko&#8217;s original comments stemmed from what has devolved into a highly disappointing season for Texas A&amp;M. The Aggies started the year at No. 8 in the AP Top 25 poll, and they now sit at 1-3 in conference play with a tough schedule down the stretch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The latest loss was especially concerning, as Texas A&amp;M mustered just six points against Missouri, with starting quarterback <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/college-football\/players\/29173876\/marcel-reed\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marcel Reed<\/a> completing fewer than 50% of his passes for 187 yards and two interceptions.<\/p>\n<p>Texas A&amp;M has already taken a clear step back from its 11-2 campaign in 2025. The only question left is how steep that drop-off will be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elko drew backlash for his characterization of a section of the Aggies&#8217; fan base following Saturday&#8217;s 21-point loss&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[261,4055,787,27,260,29,28],"class_list":["post-464210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-football","tag-marcel-reed","tag-missouri-tigers","tag-texas","tag-texas-am-aggies","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}