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Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko gave a candid review of the fan base as his team now sits at 3-3 after losing for the third time in four games on Saturday, this time a 27-6 defeat to Missouri.
He sent a clear shot at the fan site TexAgs.com, calling the website a “cesspool” in his postgame comments to the media.
“There’s a difference to me between the fan base and social media, and so there’s one group that I really don’t care much about. Billy [Liucci’s] cesspool can go be Billy’s cesspool. Our fan base: Stay with us. Be behind us. We’re going to build something. That’s what we told you we were going to build. We’re in a really bad spot right now, but we’ll work our way out of it,” Elko said.
The Aggies, who entered the season ranked eighth in the AP Top 25, are going through an underwhelming stretch of a 1-3 conference record.
“Our fan base, stay with us, be behind us. We’re going to build something that we told you we were going to build. So we’re in a really bad spot right now, but we’ll work our way out of it,” Elko said.
Texas A&M has now lost three of their last four games and sit 14th in the SEC.
Site co-owner Billy Liucci didn’t take the response too seriously, understanding where Elko was coming from as the coach sounded like any big-name coach coming off a bad loss.
“It was just (the) wrong time and wrong audience to be saying that, the way the season is going,” Liucci said. “It’s never a time to call out the fans, especially when it’s a large, loyal portion of your fanbase. … I’m the target often on social media, even on my own message boards, but the criticism just comes with it. It comes with having opinions, coaching, and having high-profile positions and high-profile schools.”
The TexAgs site was founded in 1997 and grew to become the largest independent fan site in college sports, and with thousands of paying subscribers, makes it one of the largest fan sites in the world.
The page is more notable for a player-benefits scandal that ended Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar’s NCAA eligibility for the Sooners in 2006 originating from a post on the site.
The Aggies and Elko look to get back in the fans’ good graces next week with a much-needed victory against the Citadel.