(Photo: Grace Monos/WCSN)
TEMPE — Texas A&M’s “Century Tree” is a 135‑year‑old landmark woven into campus lore. Legend has it that walking under its “Friendship Branch” with someone brings lifelong camaraderie.
Aggie fans might pass beneath the branch and bring a new friend to Kyle Field on Saturday. But that friendship won’t extend toward Arizona State (1-0) or head coach Kenny Dillingham, who’s focused on a tree of a different type.
(1-0) No. 8 Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko is among college football’s premier defensive minds. With 18 years of defensive coordinator experience behind him, he’s built a clear schematic identity for the Aggies. Along the way, he developed branches of a coaching lineage.
“I would like to say Coach Elko has a tree,” Dillingham said. “He has his own system of how he does things. A lot of people have been very successful taking the blueprint that he’s had and running it.”
Saturday will mark the coaches’ second clash. Their first meeting came on September 21, 2019. Dillingham, though he didn’t call plays, was Auburn’s offensive coordinator. Elko coached for Texas A&M then, but as its defensive coordinator.
The Tigers entered College Station and left with a 28-20 victory. A year later, the coaches had a conversation. As they talked, Dillingham realized that Elko’s offseason adjustments wiped out Auburn’s 2019 game plan, ensuring no team could replicate it and find success.
“We got on the phone and talked football,” Dillingham said. “It was funny because the indicators we had before are no longer there. I go back to my notes and I’m like, ‘All right, what are the things that we had?’ And it’s like, ‘Not there, not there.’”
In 2021, Dillingham entered his second year as Florida State’s offensive coordinator, where he once again didn’t have primary play‑calling duties. With the Seminoles, he coached alongside former defensive coordinator Adam Fuller.
Fuller was Richmond’s defensive backs coach in 2005, when Elko was the Spiders’ special teams coordinator. Fuller and Dillingham helped craft Florida State’s strategy for a September 18 matchup against Wake Forest and Elko’s scheme.
In charge of the defense wasn’t Elko himself — it was a protégé.
Former Demon Deacons defensive coordinator Lyle Hemphill was instrumental in Wake Forest’s 35-14 rout of the Seminoles. He spent three years with Elko at Hofstra from 2006–08. Elko was the Pride’s defensive coordinator, and Hemphill coached special teams.
Hemphill is once again working with Elko, this time as the Aggies’ defensive coordinator. The defense is built on Elko’s foundation, and Elko calls the plays, but Hemphill has game‑day responsibilities. He sends calls to the “green‑dot” player, who relays the call to the defense.
“They complement each other perfectly,” Dillingham said. “This is not somebody else’s system. This is like, ‘We’re facing the guy who put this thing together.’”
Planning for Saturday, Dillingham has looked to the past for film. Before his return to Texas A&M in 2024, Elko took up the mantle of Duke’s head coach and led the team from 2022–23. Dillingham included Blue Devils tape from that stretch in his film study.
Hemphill was a member of Elko’s Durham staff during both of those seasons, listed as safeties coach in 2022 and elevated to co‑defensive coordinator in 2023. When Elko left in 2024, Hemphill was hired as James Madison’s defensive coordinator.
Leaving no stone unturned, Dillingham paired 2024 Dukes footage with that of 2022–23 Duke.
“We chase, probably, too many ghosts,” Dillingham said. “You almost have to chase these ghosts and have them in the back of your mind. ‘What do you got to respond with if this is the wrinkle that they provide this year?’”
The Aggies are coming off a 50-0 shellacking of Missouri State, a game in which they allowed 67 total yards across four quarters. ASU scored 70 points in its season opener, but it’s unclear how much of that can be attributed to a gap in competition level.
That picture will become clearer on Saturday, as the Sun Devils go from facing an FCS opponent to a top‑tier SEC program. There is a case to be made that Texas A&M will be ASU’s most daunting foe of 2026.
“I don’t care if you have the easiest schedule or the hardest,” Dillingham said. “This team’s on our schedule; they’re a really good team, they’re a top-10 team in the country, we’re on the road. Let’s go play our best football game.”
Preparing for the Aggies means preparing for Elko, a coach who possesses a coaching style Dillingham admires. Elko evaluates himself as thoroughly as he evaluates opponents, a trait Dillingham believes is “the sign of a good coach.”
Dillingham and Elko aren’t allowed to be friends on Saturday, even if they walk under the Friendship Branch together. Still, Dillingham has grown to respect the coach he’ll see on the other sideline, proof that the branch’s meaning doesn’t fade when competition arrives.
“He’s one of the best head coaches in the country,” Dillingham said. “Coach Elko has been very good on defense and as a head coach for a long time because he understands the subtleties of what make, in my opinion, really good defense.”
