Coming off an 11-2 season and an appearance in the College Football Playoff, Texas A&M Coach Mike Elko knows the expectations for the 2026 season are high. Meeting them is something the Aggies typically have not done.

“This program has had a really hard time doubling down on success. That’s our challenge,” Elko said during his Tuesday press conference before the start of fall camp Wednesday night. “That is a challenge and a puzzle that has not been cracked here before.”

That doesn’t mean Elko is apprehensive about the upcoming season, even with a nine-game SEC schedule waiting. Instead, he’s confident the 2026 Aggies have enough talent and depth to compete for higher stakes.

“(I’m) Excited for this team, excited for the work that they put in this summer. Now we got to figure out who we are and what we’re about, and what we’re really going to go out and accomplish,” Elko said.

A&M will go into fall camp remarkably healthy, with Elko saying that things are very positive on the injury front.

“I don’t think we’ll have anybody miss (camp). Nobody going in with massive limitations, and so we’re healthy and ready to roll,” he said.

That means linebacker Daymion Sanford, who was carted off at the Maroon & White Game with a leg injury, will be ready to practice in some capacity Wednesday.

“There are natural football build-up limitations that happen to guys who are recovering from injuries. So he’s not going to go out there and take 82 reps in practice in practice one,” Elko said. “There’s still probably some markers and some steps that he’s got to go through, but we’ll see. He’s on course to be (ready for the season opener Sept. 5).”

Even though the Aggies return a solid number of starters on both sides of the ball and worked the transfer portal efficiently to fill holes, Elko said very few positions already have a starter locked in.

“I think we’re excited about the fact that I don’t know who some of the starters are going into fall camp, offensive line, defensive line, linebacker. When healthy, who’s going to be the (backups)?” he said. “You know, there’s a corner competition. Who’s going to go out there at wideout? Because we’ve got a lot of depth there. I just think there’s a lot of competition across the board, and ultimately that elevates everything in your program. I think that’s really important.”

One spot where there will be competition is for the backup quarterback job, after last year’s backup, Miles O’Neill, transferred to North Carolina. There are three players fighting for role, but one player goes into camp with an edge.

“Brady (Hart) will go into camp as the number two,” Elko said. “Obviously, Helaman (Casuga) and Eli Morcos are going to try to to uproot him. We’ll kind of see how that plays itself out.”

Elko said at SEC Media Days that he thought this season’s Aggies would have the best secondary they’ve had during during his time in College Station (both as an assistant and head coach). He reiterated that during Tuesday’s press conference.

“We’re going into a season with an SEC-level secondary. There have been times in the past where that’s not exactly where we were,” he said. “When you look at the pieces we have back there, you feel really good about rotating and feel really good about holding up through 12 games.”

One area where Aggies did not feel really good about last year was at placekicker, where Jared Zirkel and Randy Bond combined to assemble a kicking group that was an outright disaster. Elko said there’s a lot of confidence in their replacements going into fall camp.

“We feel like, you know, David (Olano) and Asher (Murray) have had really good summers. You know, Asher had a really, really good spring,” he said. “Both of those guys appear ready to go into this year and give us really strong kicking.”