Some of the things Texas A&M’s Mike Elko said ahead of football reunion with Texas

Texas A&M is fresh off an upset loss to Florida

The Texas Longhorns’ football program will travel to College Station this week for the first time since 2011, when Texas A&M (and Missouri) left the Big 12 Conference for the Southeastern Conference. The winner of Texas and Texas A&M’s rivalry will play Georgia in the SEC Championship.

Ahead of the both programs’ key meeting, Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko, who’s in his first season leading the program, shared a few of his thoughts on the Longhorns’ team, according to On3.

“This game was always going to mean something,” Elko said, referring to the stakes at play for Texas and Texas A&M. “You guys have been asking me about it since the day I got hired, and now it means everything. We have that opportunity to right the last two wrongs in SEC play (road losses to South Carolina and Auburn) and go out with a bang and put ourselves in the SEC Championship Game. That’s the focus, that’s the task at hand. Obviously, we’re excited and ready for the challenge.”

“When you have two programs as large as these two programs are, as close to each other as they are, it doesn’t make a ton of sense for them not to play,” Elko added. “So it always felt weird not playing. Now to be playing and to be playing for what we’re playing for, I’d imagine it will be pretty electric Saturday.”