We use a linear algebra interpretation of the action of Hecke operators on Drinfeld cusp forms to prove that when the dimension of the $\mathbb {C}_\infty $ -vector space $S_{k,m}(\mathrm {{GL}}_2(\mathbb {F}_q[t]))$ is one, the Hecke operator $\mathbf {T}_t$ is injective on $S_{k,m}(\mathrm {{GL}}_2(\mathbb {F}_q[t]))$ and $S_{k,m}(\Gamma _0(t))$ is a direct sum of oldforms and newforms.