Duke fans really don’t know a whole lot about Mike Elko yet. Unlike David Cutcliffe, who had head coachng experience and a reputation as a quarterback whisperer, Elko was a defensive coordinator, most recently for Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M.
Just from what we’ve seen of him in public, he seems like a somewhat quiet guy.
But his college coach, Al Bagnoli, said this about his former Penn player: “He said, ‘He’s the smartest football player that we’ve ever had at the University of Pennsylvania... ‘No question about it.’”
That’s really great to hear and this might seem like a minor point but it’s really not: his time at Penn, and also at Notre Dame, mean that Duke’s academic requirements will not surprise him.