Mike Elko and Duke preparing for Temple
Friday will mark the beginning of an era for both Temple and Duke, as the two programs face off in the debuts of their respective head coaches. Kickoff at Wallace Wade Stadium is set for 7:30 p.m., and the game will be televised on the ACC Network.
First-year coaches Stan Drayton and Mike Elko, a South Brunswick, New Jersey native who played at Penn, have familiarity with each other from their time spent in the state of Texas. While Elko was the defensive coordinator at Texas A&M before coming to Duke, Drayton was the associate head coach and running backs coach at Texas before landing the Owls’ head coaching job back in December.
Elko also interviewed for Temple's head coaching job in December of 2018 following Geoff Collins' departure to Georgia Tech and was strongly considered before he ultimately decided to remain at Texas A&M.
Temple’s returning players from the past three seasons also have some familiarity with Elko’s staff, as new Texas A&M offensive coordinator Kevin Johns held the same post at Memphis, possibly Temple’s biggest rival in The American from 2019-2021, when Temple was 2-1 against the Tigers.
Redshirt sophomore running back Darvon Hubbard transferred to Temple after spending 2020 and 2021 from Texas A&M, having practiced against Elko’s defenses almost every day for two years.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for that program,” Elko said. “Being a Northeast guy and being a guy who went to school in Philadelphia, I have certainly seen the rise of Temple. I’ve been around Coach Drayton, have a lot of respect for the job that he does.”
“Obviously, this is a little bit of a unique opener,” Elko added. “You've got two first time head coaches with a new program, so there's not a lot of information out there about either side. You know, I think everybody is trying to get as much information as they can behind the scenes to try to be as ready as we possibly can, and we certainly have done that.”
Elko recently named sophomore Riley Leonard as Duke’s starting quarterback over sophomore Jordan Moore, although Moore had stopped taking snaps at quarterback around halfway through preseason camp.
“[I’m] really excited about Riley’s development,” Elko said. “He had a really good camp throwing the football. Jordan competed all the way through spring, all the way through fall camp.”
Elko said he does plan for Moore to still be involved in the offense though, as the versatile quarterback can also line up at wide receiver and running back for the Blue Devils.
Like most programs, both Temple and Duke are excited to finally play someone not named Temple or Duke and are ready to see what their teams are really made of.
Both coaches were asked what they wanted to see from their teams Friday and both had similar answers, wanting to play a clean game and walk away healthy.
“We want to be turnover free, we want to be penalty free,” Elko said. “We want to make sure we give ourselves every advantage to win the game.”
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