Mike Elko responds to Garrett Nussmeier’s comments on Kyle Field vs. Death Valley

This offseason, LSU Tigers QB Garrett Nussmeier went viral for downplaying the environment at Kyle Field compared to his own home field in Death Valley in Baton Rouge.

“It’s not even close,” Nussmeier told reporters this offseason. “Yes, Kyle Field is loud, I’ll give them that, but it’s not Death Valley.”

Predictably, those comments resurfaced this week as the Texas A&M Aggies prepare to host Nussmeier and the Tigers this Saturday night in College Station.

During his radio show on Wednesday night, Aggies head coach Mike Elko was asked about Nussmeier’s stance on Kyle Field. But of course, instead of addressing Nussmeier directly, Elko chose to explain in detail what exactly makes Kyle Field so special to him and his program.

“I joked about this because I couldn’t believe there were conversations in the spring about the 12th Man showing up at the spring game,” Elko said. “There’s a lot of things I worry about, the one thing I never worry about is where the 12th man will be when Texas A&M football plays Saturday. They’ll be in Kyle, they’ll be loud and proud, and they will give us an incredible home advantage.

“What it means to us is everything. It means you have support… You have to deal with so much negativity these days when things aren’t going well, like social media, message boards, blogs and all these things. The kids have to understand: your fan base is always there for you. They don’t turn their backs on you. It’s not like if you win they love you. If you don’t, they won’t. You are very blessed to be in a place where your fan base shows up and supports you all the time.

As for Nussmeier, he walked back his offseason comments a bit this week, noting that Kyle Field is indeed a loud and challenging environment.

“We recognize it is a difficult environment,” Nussmeier said this week. “It’s a tough place to play. It’ll be loud, it’ll be exciting… But like I said before the Ole Miss game, it’s easy to get caught up in the extracurriculars of what this game means We can think about that all week and then lose the football game, and it doesn’t matter. We’re going to play a football game on Saturday. It’s going to be loud on executing our performance as best as possible and attacking our opponent.”

The Aggies and the Tigers kick off Saturday at 6:30 PM on ABC.

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