Texas A&M lost 27-6 at No. 14 Missouri on Saturday. Afterward, asked about the fan base, Mike Elko drew a line between two groups of people and then insulted one of them by name.
“There’s a difference to me between the fan base and social media,” Elko said. “There’s one group I don’t care much about.”
Then he got specific: “Billy’s cesspool can go be Billy’s cesspool. Our fan base, stay with us. Be behind us.”
Who Billy Is
Billy Liucci runs TexAgs.com, the paid-subscription message board and fan hub that has been the dominant Texas A&M fan-media outlet for two decades. Naming him personally is what gave the remark its weight. This was not a general complaint about online negativity.
Elko addressed it at his Monday press conference, and it is worth being precise about what he did and did not say.
“In the heat of the moment, I think I answered a question in a way that I certainly regret,” he said. “I regret the way it was taken. I regret the way it came out. I regret the way it ran.”
He did not apologize for the word. Yahoo Sports noted as much explicitly. He regretted how it landed, which is a different thing.
He also said he has a “tremendous relationship” with Liucci, and took the blame for the team: “At no point ever did I lend any blame to anything other than myself. I am the reason why this team is struggling.”
The Record Is the Real Story
Texas A&M is 3-3 overall and 1-3 in the SEC. Against Missouri the Aggies managed 216 total yards. All six points came from David Olano field goals of 53 and 27 yards. Marcel Reed went 19-of-39 for 187 yards.
Missouri scored on two Jamal Roberts touchdown runs of two and 54 yards, a 32-yard Cayden Lee touchdown catch, and field goals of 50 and 51.
Elko signed a six-year, $69 million contract in December 2025, announced the previous month after a 9-0 start. It runs through the 2031 season with an average base salary of $11.5 million, rising from $10.75 million in Year 1 to $12.25 million in Year 6, with up to $1.8 million a year in incentives.
His buyout if he leaves without cause is $12 million before December 2, 2026, declining to $1 million by 2031. It is a flat $1 million if he leaves for an NFL job.
The Problem With Picking This Fight
Elko is right that message boards are not the fan base. He is also a coach who just got $69 million on the strength of a 9-0 start and is now 1-3 in conference play, publicly complaining about criticism.
That is a losing position regardless of how correct the underlying point is. Coaches get to win that argument when they are winning games.
His own framing undercut him too. He said he is the reason the team is struggling, which is accountability, and in the same breath told a segment of the fan base he does not care about them. Both things cannot be the headline.
Texas A&M hosts The Citadel on October 17. Nobody will remember this by November if the Aggies win four straight. If they do not, the cesspool line is the first thing anyone quotes.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.