During his weekly press conference, Elko complimented the "professional way" his team went about its business against McNeese and didn't play down to the level of competition. Instead, they took control early and allowed a total of 85 players to see the field.

"I thought we started fast. I thought both sides of the ball did what we would have expected them to do," he said. "We were able to get that thing out of hand quickly and able to play a lot of guys."

While the Aggies were expected to blow out the Cowboys, Elko said it would be a mistake to simply shrug off the game's results.

"I think the film is still the film. You still see footwork, you still see fundamentals. You see still seem how you're targeting plays, how you're making your communications on defense, there's still a lot of things, some of the intricacies within the game that you're paying attention to," he said. "Obviously, you would expect us to be able to run and get open. You would expect us to be able to cover them. But some of the pre snap stuff, I don't think that changes week to week, regardless of opponent. And so there are still a lot of things that you can look at and point to and say we got better, and point to and say we still have some areas we've got to grow on."

One area where the Aggies need to improve is in run defense, as A&M has struggled to slow down the running game of both Notre Dame and McNeese. Elko was characteristically blunt when asked for his opinion on what he's seen to date.

"It's been terrible, if we're being honest," he said. "It's that's not been what we want it to be. You know, I think ... it didn't start going south until, you know, we really started getting to some guys who haven't played a lot of football. And so I think that was good for them. I think the first group handled last week the right way, but, but certainly giving up 185 yards a game on the ground is not where we want to be at all."

While A&M's pass defense has been one of the nation's best so far, the entire defense will need to step up its game as the Aggies head to Gainesville to face Florida (1-1), fresh off a 45-7 win over Samford with true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway at the helm. Gators coach Billy Napier has indicated that starter Graham Mertz, who missed last week's game witih a concussion, will return Saturday but both quarterbacks will play.

That poses an increased challenge for the Aggies, who will have to prepare for two quarterbacks with differing skill sets.

"I think you kind of come up with a plan on how you think you want to handle both kids," Elko said. "I think you have to prepare like both of them are going to play the whole game. I think you have to have in your mind just some thoughts on on which way the game can go. You can't come up with two different game plans, because I think your kids will get paralyzed by volume."

The focus on the Florida offense, however, will have to extend beyond Lagway and Mertz. Elko noted that the Gators have some quality players at the skill positions as well.

"They've got a running back, Montrell Johnson, who has run for over 2500 yards in his career. Certainly played an awful lot of football; a really talented back," he said. "Outside, they've got Eugene Wilson playing wide receiver, who's one of the best wide receivers in the conference, kid that obviously we're gonna have to pay a lot of attention to. But they really did a good job adding some experienced guys through the portal. And so they're really talented at the wide receiver group, for sure, the best group that we played to this point, tight end wise, I think they've got great size and length, are physical at the point of attack."

Even though the Gators were lit up for 529 yards of total offense and 41 points in its season opening loss to Miami, Elko said Florida's defense still commands respect.

"It's certainly an SEC group. When you look at them, they're tall, they're long, they got a lot of girth inside their defensive line is really talented, length, physicality, athleticism, certainly, when you get into SEC play, you get a different level of twitch that jumps off the tape, and we'll have to prepare for that appropriately," he said. "Shemar James is one of the better linebackers in the conference. (Linebacker) Pup Howard's a kid that we knew very well when I was here recruiting. And so both those kids are talented players. Jason Marshall is one of the best corners in the league, and again, through the transfer portal, they added some experience in the secondary. And so it's a talented group. We're gonna have our hands full."

Playing in The Swamp for an afternoon game is no walk in the park, and the Aggies will kick off against the Gators at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday. Elko said the coaching staff started preparing the team for road games like this one back in the spring.

"That's one of the things when you look at -- okay, we're an SEC program, like we're going to have to do this. We're going to have to win games on the road. And so you certainly don't want to walk in on Sunday and say, 'Okay, here's what it now looks like, and we're going to try to get ready in three days for this,'" he said. "I think some of those different mechanics we've already been working and practicing, some of it is your normal cadence. Some of it is, how do you handle it if it's really loud, third down, when you're backed up, some of those types of things. But I think those are all things that our kids are really comfortable with, because we installed all of that in the spring."