It seemed strange that there wasn't a SULLY ON STATE for perhaps the biggest game in the history of the rivalry, so I decided to do a little research in the hopes that he posted it on another platform. And indeed he did and I thought I'd share it here. Buckle up, it's long. But there's meaning and relevance behind every word...
It’s always been about so much more than what happens on the field or on the court.
For State, it’s one of the more significant dynamics that drives so many of the aspirational elements of the university.
For State, it’s a 365-day a year thing and Spartans everywhere embrace all aspects of it.
For UMAA, it’s a thing that presents so many existential challenges due to the choice that was made literally at the very birth of the dynamic – a concerted effort to demonstrate a superficially camouflaged laissez faire attitude stemming from a sanctimonious contempt.
It’s the rivalry that we’re talking about here.
And since the rivalry is predicated on so much more than athletics, it calls for a moment to address what must be addressed in October of 2021.
The rivalry is cultural, institutional, intellectual, and even philosophical.
Therefore, the following has to be examined – at least by someone…..
Don Canham.
Bo Schembechler.
Gary Moeller.
Lloyd Carr.
Jim Harbaugh.
Desmond Howard.
Charles Woodson.
Jalen Rose.
Juwan Howard.
John U. Bacon.
Rich Eisen.
How about Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post?
Every editor at The Detroit News.
Every editor at The Detroit Free Press.
The blabber mouths who buy radio time with their own money in order to beam their parochial little shows to the sycophants.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber is a UMAAer – perhaps he can offer a single observation?
Earth to Bob Wojnowski.
Adam Schefter has a UMAA helmet prominently placed in the background of his home office from where he provides such important reporting on the NFL.
Jonathan Chait writes for New York Magazine and periodically writes columns for the Los Angeles Times.
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992 and she regularly has contributed to Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Esquire.
Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor for the National Review.
Jill Tolentino is another staff writer for The New Yorker.
Hell, The New Yorker alone could stand up an inside team right there at 1 World Trade Center where they proudly and strategically moved their headquarters in 2015.
Daniel Okrent was the very first public editor for the New York Times and he invented Rotisserie League Baseball.
These are all UMAAers who proudly categorize themselves as journalists.
They’ve all done sensational work over the course of their careers.
If you’re reading this, you know what I’m getting at.
Is Kim Kozlowski the only investigative reporter in the state of Michigan?
I know that far too many Spartans have chosen to boycott and blaspheme ESPN for the coverage that felt like an onslaught for the duration of State’s own existential crisis – but Daniel Murphy and ESPN have provided far more coverage than it may seem.
ESPN won’t ever satisfy the Spartans out there who are still angry about all of that – and while I can understand this, I encourage all of them to simply turn the page on this specific aspect of the whole thing and focus on the admirable way in which State has handled what was, in fact, the most challenging existential threat to the institution in its history.
The way the university and community faced that challenge through and with compassion, determination, leadership, and acknowledgement of failures has allowed the institution to learn, grow, and move forward.
What has the University of Michigan done?
What have all the Michigan Men and Women done?
Where are the journalists committed so deeply to digging in and finding the truth about the injustices we face as a culture?
Has Jim Harbaugh been asked a single question about his time as a player for Bo Schembechler that was, quite literally, right in the middle of Dr. Robert Anderson’s reign of criminal terror in Ann Arbor?
Has anyone considered placing a phone call into Gary Moeller?
I know that Lloyd Carr is an untouchable – but has anyone thought to themselves, “Maybe we should have a talk with Coach Carr…”
Juwan Howard was a key member of the Fab Five, a group of student athletes that has been so celebrated for having won absolutely nothing at all and he was there as Dr. Robert Anderson ruined the lives of hundreds and hundreds of UMAAers.
There is a statue of UMAA’s patron saint outside of the building that bears his name and, it would seem, as if the raising of a statue of Ted Kaczynski might be on the agenda for the next Board of Trustees meeting to take place in Ann Arbor.
Speaking of the UMAA Board – those people loudly denigrated and ridiculed State not too long ago.
Has anyone who lives and works back there thought about asking one or all those career-long administers of academia about what the hell went on at that place for 30 or 40 years?
John U. Bacon has written enough celebratory books to fill up every hipster Ann Arbor coffee house and he’s and done enough solipsistic impressions of Bo Schembechler to give Lorne Michaels reason to consider not accepting Bacon as a featured contributor from time to time.
If you’re a real journalist and if you’re a true Michigan Man or Woman, how about asking a single question about the thing that can’t even be described as an elephant in the room since there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of UMAAers who have filed lawsuits that claim they were sexually assaulted by one of Bo Schembechler’s most trusted staffers for decades?
Jim Harbaugh hasn’t been asked a single question about this whole tragedy??
Here’s a very simple guide:
“Hi, Jim. Did Dr. Robert Anderson ever treat you while you played quarterback for Bo Schembechler and, if so, what was that experience like for you? And a quick follow up – over the years that you were a member of Bo Schembechler’s program, were you ever aware of teammates who experienced what hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of former student athletes who played for Bo Schembechler have said they experienced?”
How hard is it to ask those questions to a man who is currently responsible for the complete oversight of the football program, who is a celebrated former player for the program, and who, one would have to assume, received at least the most minimally-required treatment from the doctor in question?
Jim Harbaugh has, over the years, spoken about Bo Schembechler in the way a son speaks of the father he loves and respects.
Did Jim Harbaugh ever see, hear, think, talk about, consider what, seemingly, every football player dating back to the hiring of Bo Schembechler appears to have a pretty specific understanding of?
Ask Lupe Izzo what it was like for her husband when State was dealing with all of this.
Mark Dantonio was harassed as if he was John Wayne Gacy’s accomplice.
How about the various UMAA presidents that have run the institution over the handful of decades when this monster was sexually assaulting UMAA athletes with Schembechler, Moeller, Carr, Steve Fisher, and the rest of these people right down the hall?
Yeah, we know – Don Canham and Bo Schembechler are dead.
So what?
All these other people aren’t.
Schembechler didn’t know?
I’ll listen to the UMAAers whine about Desmond Howard dropping the pass.
I’ll listen to them whine about whether that final second should have been left on the clock.
What I won’t ever listen to is anyone claiming that Schembechler, Canham, Moeller, Carr, Howard, Steve Fisher, Woodson, Wheatley, and, most relevantly right now, Jim Harbaugh didn’t know what the hell was going on at that place as that monster did whatever the hell he wanted with impunity.
Memo to all “journalists,” opiners, pundits, experts, editors, reporters, and administrators – stand up and act like professionals and do your jobs.
When you literally establish your institution with the sanctimonious predicate of being the “leaders and best,” you leave yourself very little margin for error.
When you commit an error – or, more to the point, when you allow a decades-long nightmarish run of criminality to occur that ruins lives due to a UMAA staff member being given the freedom to sexually assault hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids who chose the university based on the aforementioned predicate – you have an obligation to own the errors and fix them.
At the very least, you should be challenged for what sure does appear to be one of the most egregious failures of leadership imaginable.
You all live in the biggest, gaudiest, most poorly built glass house in the history of man.
And your glass house doesn’t have a roof.
And the basement is flooded.
And there isn’t any indoor plumbing.
And you walk around inside of it as if it’s a glorious English Tudor worthy of cover treatment from Town & Country.
It’s made of glass and everyone can see right into it.
Inside of that eyesore, it’s as ugly as it gets.
Coach Harbaugh’s music video that he did a long time ago asked the rhetorical question, “Who’s got it better than us?”
I know at least one place that provides a very proud answer to the ridiculous question.
State.
_______________________________________________________________________
First, think back to when Jim Harbaugh claimed that his student athletes were victims of a “Stormtrooper March” as Mark Dantonio’s football team did what it did before every single home game from the start of the Dantonio Era (without there ever being any “incident” of any kind at all) – it walked across its home field.
The UMAA student athletes’ behavior in that ridiculous fiasco will always be emblematic of the DNA of that football program.
I’ll say this – if my own son behaved like the guy who had the temper tantrum highlighted by the stomping, the cleating, the yelling, the babyish gyrations, the stomping, the scuffing, the yelling, and the overall insanity, my son would be cleaning toilets at the YMCA every Sunday morning for six-to-eight months and he wouldn’t be allowed to have any ice cream after dinner.
Now, think back to when Shea Patterson took the cues from his institution and program and gloated in the locker room, speaking about how he and his teammates took pleasure in running up the score en route to a 44-10 win over State in Ann Arbor.
Those were a couple of rough day for all Spartans.
The man who will forever go down as one of the greatest Spartans of all time took a beating and when Patterson stuck in the dagger with that late heave to run up the score in Ann Arbor, it felt like that was the end of the road after what had been the best run for the Green & White in a long, long time.
A few months after that loss in Ann Arbor, Mark Dantonio chose to step down as the head coach for a school he had become synonymous with due to the way in which he won, the way in which he embodied so much of what the university stands for, and for the way he instilled a pride and passion that was (and still is) impossible to quantify.
The timing was awkward.
The resignation itself was abrupt and a bit hard to watch.
The subsequent search for the replacement of the winningest coach in school history was a bit bumpy.
A head coach was hired and while it was clear from the moment Mel Tucker arrived that he wasn’t coming to East Lansing to take a nap, many Spartans wondered if challenging days were back to stay.
That was way, way, way back in………….late 2019 and early 2020.
It’s October of 2021 right now.
If you were concerned about the ghost of Muddy Waters influencing the football program in Beast Lansing for the foreseeable future, have you realized that this whole situation took about ten minutes to develop?
Let’s also take a moment to look at what so many experts had been referring to as the “falling off of a cliff” nature of State’s football program.
We’ll use five years dating back to the 2016 debacle of a season that came after State’s 3rd Big Ten Championship in five years and an appearance in the College Football Playoff as a reasonable time-period to gauge the credibility of “falling off of a cliff.”
3-9.
10-3.
7-6.
7-6.
2-5 in a season that anyone with a brain will acknowledge will forever have fifty asterisks next to it – especially for a program with a brand-new head coach who didn’t know many of the names of his players and hadn’t yet had more than two hours of practice time as a team when the “season” began.
27-24 over Dantonio’s final four seasons – with a 2-5 mark in Tucker’s first season to lead to an overall mark of 29-29 by my arithmetic.
27-24 or 29-29 – take your pick - isn’t going to go down as a phenomenal five-year stretch by any measure.
But it also isn’t exactly Kansas or Kent State or Massachusetts.
Let’s now use the 2017 season to start the five-year stretch and include the seven games played thus far this season.
33-20.
33-20 overall record for State since way, way, way, way, back to 2017.
It’s perfectly fair – and probably accurate – to simply say that, understandably, Mark Dantonio and his staff that won three Big Ten Championships, reached the College Football Playoff, earned countless memorably epic victories over rivals of all kinds, had run out of gas.
Have you worked 80- or 90-hour work weeks for 13 straight years, committing yourself to such an extent that your family is compromised, your “social life” is non-existent, you’ve subjected yourself to endlessly irrational criticism from people who literally have no idea what they’re talking about, you’ve suffered a heart attack only to get right back to work about ten days later, and become the highest-achieving employee in the history of the company or business for which you work?
It’s understandable – there are “factions” that get persnickety when Dantonio is criticized in retrospect.
Don’t begrudge them, folks.
The run was absolutely amazing and the man dedicated himself to State in a way that very, very few people ever have.
And if you’re inclined to point out the incredible ways that Mel Tucker has brilliantly revitalized the program, just take a moment to consider every one of these Spartan Dawgs –
Payton Thorne.
Jayden Reed.
Jalen Nailor.
Virtually the entire offensive line.
Xavier Henderson.
Connor Heyward.
Tre Mosely.
Drew Beesley.
Jacub Panasiuk.
Matt Coghlin.
Bryce Barringer.
Michael Dowell.
Brandon Wright.
Noah Harvey.
Jacob Slade.
Deshaun Mallory.
Tyler Hunt.
Harlan Barnett.
Ron Burton.
Ted Gilmore.
Lorenzo Guess.
Darien Harris.
Dr. Sally Nogle.
Every one of these Spartans was a significant member of Mark Dantonio’s program.
And now, every single one of these Spartans is a significant part of Mel Tucker’s program.
Which means, these Spartans and all the others who have since joined are a part of a true program that has demonstrated the ability to transition, reignite, progress, battle, grow – and win.
What Mel Tucker has done is remarkable and he’s only just getting started.
And the people who live in the glass house are soiling their pants.
And for all the angst that was palpable all of 18 months ago, perhaps the most significant thing Tucker has done is REIGNITE a program that had gotten stale.
But the reignition doesn’t mean a thing without scheme, talent, a brilliant strategic approach to the transfer portal (if a coach isn’t winning here, it’s no different than if he simply chooses not to recruit), a daily focus on The Process, in-game coaching, halftime and in-game adjustments, player development, a mastery of man-to-man motivation, and one of the more essential elements necessary for a college football head coach to be as successful as possible: a deep understanding of and respect for the traditions and cultural foundation of the institution.
If you didn’t see the foundation of what’s happening now being established during last “season,” you weren’t watching closely enough (and that’s okay).
God bless Rocky Lombardi.
We wish him nothing but the best – and he will forever have a place in State’s proud history for the way he orchestrated the humiliating body blow in Ann Arbor last year.
In retrospect, we can understand why Tucker properly chose Lombardi as his main man last “season” – he knew the names of his teammates, his experience allowed him to handle things even though the team had about as much time practicing together as it’s taken me to write this column, and he was likely to make the least total of major gaffes.
Seven games into the 2021 season, we can clearly see that Tucker and his staff have been able to operate with a full tank of gas.
Payton Thorne is a Redshirt Sophomore and is poised to grow into one of the all-time great Spartan quarterbacks.
Reed, Nailor, Mosley – these guys are showing that Mark Dantonio was right in bringing them to Beast Lansing and that Tucker and Jay Johnson know how to exploit these weapons.
Kenneth Walker III?
Even after K9’s “poor” performance at Bloomington (84 yards isn’t exactly crappy), he leads the nation in rushing with 997 yards through seven games.
The next game State plays will take place on October 30th and if the Heisman Trophy were to be awarded on October 31st, K9 would take home the door stop.
Cal Haladay?
For anyone wondering if Tucker knows what a Spartan linebacker is supposed to be like, simply watch this maniac and stop wondering.
QCrouch?
See the sentence I just wrote about Cal Haladay.
If anyone has questioned whether another Jerel Worthy might ever suit up in Green and White again, watch Simeon Barrow (a Redshirt Freshman) for a few plays.
The story for most of the season has been the offensive firepower – and for good reason.
When you average 34 points a game, you’re putting yourself in position to win a lot of games.
However, State’s defense is starting to show the balance of this team.
A lot of talk from some of the experts about how State’s defense gives up yards.
Okay.
State is giving up an average of 18 points a game.
That’s good for 21st in the nation.
You’re gonna win a lot of games when you give up only 18 points a game.
When you combine that with an offense that averages 34 points a game, it sort of doesn’t matter where the defense ranks nationally in the category, does it?
Through seven games in 2021, State has 26 sacks.
That’s good for third in the nation.
Georgia is fifth in the nation in sacks.
State’s turnover margin is +5, good for 26th in the nation.
That’s hardly crappy.
Matt Coghlin absolutely drilled two massive field goals against Indiana – one for 52 yards and one for 49 yards.
But just as important is the way in which Coghlin is destroying kickoffs – his touchback percentage is above 90%.
Think back to a few seasons ago when reaching the endzone on a kickoff wasn’t even realistic – and the kickoff coverage was not strong.
Coghlin has given the defense the opportunity to start from a strong position on virtually every possession.
Bryce Barringer doesn’t just look phenomenal in those bifocals – his boots average a distance of 49 yards with a net average of 44 yards.
Jayden Reed is very good at returning punts.
Mel Tucker talks constantly about playing “complementary football – offense, defense, and special teams.”
That can sound like coachspeak – but with Tucker, that’s not just how he talks – that’s how he runs his program every single day.
If you watch and listen closely to Tucker as he talks about football, you might be reminded of something he said in his introductory press conference.
“If you love football, I’m probably going to like you.”
In other words, this guy eats, drinks, breathes, and sleeps football.
And now he’s eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping Spartan Football.
If you’ve had a chance to spend any time with Tucker, you might get the sense that he’s manically and - maybe even obsessively - focused on his mission.
At a place like State, I’ve always believed that the head man almost needs to have an obsessive commitment to the job.
The challenges are different than they are in Columbus or South Bend or Tuscaloosa or Norman or Ann Arbor.
The man in charge in Beast Lansing must not only recognize but embrace the fact that it’s a constant uphill battle that calls for more, more, more across all aspects of the job.
Not even the great Nick Saban had what it took to swim down to the deepest parts of the water and drag the rivals down there where life is hard and everything must be earned with toughness, grit, determination, and, yes, an obsessive commitment.
Mark Dantonio knew all of this.
His respected friend and brother-in-arms who has picked up the baton that was handed over to him knows this perhaps better than anyone that’s come before him.
More importantly, this isn’t just how Tucker approaches his “job” – this is how the guy approaches his life.
If you were a coach or a fan or a radio blabberer or a pundit or a recruiter or a simpleton who loves to Twitter and you were trying to pretend like this guy at State isn’t in the process of doing what he’s doing, you won’t convince me you aren’t freaking out about this whole thing.
And brace yourself, folks – this thing is only just getting started.
As we all begin to prepare for what is guaranteed to be one of the more memorable Saturdays along the banks of the Red Cedar, as yourself these very simple questions within the context of the current realities:
Which football program would you rather hitch your wagon to?
Which head coach would you rather have leading the charge, establishing the vision, executing the process, and leading the entire operation?
To which culture would rather belong?
And, which football players would you rather have on the team you’ll be pulling for on October 30th?
It’s always been about so much more than what happens on the field or on the court.
For State, it’s one of the more significant dynamics that drives so many of the aspirational elements of the university.
For State, it’s a 365-day a year thing and Spartans everywhere embrace all aspects of it.
For UMAA, it’s a thing that presents so many existential challenges due to the choice that was made literally at the very birth of the dynamic – a concerted effort to demonstrate a superficially camouflaged laissez faire attitude stemming from a sanctimonious contempt.
It’s the rivalry that we’re talking about here.
And since the rivalry is predicated on so much more than athletics, it calls for a moment to address what must be addressed in October of 2021.
The rivalry is cultural, institutional, intellectual, and even philosophical.
Therefore, the following has to be examined – at least by someone…..
Don Canham.
Bo Schembechler.
Gary Moeller.
Lloyd Carr.
Jim Harbaugh.
Desmond Howard.
Charles Woodson.
Jalen Rose.
Juwan Howard.
John U. Bacon.
Rich Eisen.
How about Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post?
Every editor at The Detroit News.
Every editor at The Detroit Free Press.
The blabber mouths who buy radio time with their own money in order to beam their parochial little shows to the sycophants.
MSNBC’s Ari Melber is a UMAAer – perhaps he can offer a single observation?
Earth to Bob Wojnowski.
Adam Schefter has a UMAA helmet prominently placed in the background of his home office from where he provides such important reporting on the NFL.
Jonathan Chait writes for New York Magazine and periodically writes columns for the Los Angeles Times.
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992 and she regularly has contributed to Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Esquire.
Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor for the National Review.
Jill Tolentino is another staff writer for The New Yorker.
Hell, The New Yorker alone could stand up an inside team right there at 1 World Trade Center where they proudly and strategically moved their headquarters in 2015.
Daniel Okrent was the very first public editor for the New York Times and he invented Rotisserie League Baseball.
These are all UMAAers who proudly categorize themselves as journalists.
They’ve all done sensational work over the course of their careers.
If you’re reading this, you know what I’m getting at.
Is Kim Kozlowski the only investigative reporter in the state of Michigan?
I know that far too many Spartans have chosen to boycott and blaspheme ESPN for the coverage that felt like an onslaught for the duration of State’s own existential crisis – but Daniel Murphy and ESPN have provided far more coverage than it may seem.
ESPN won’t ever satisfy the Spartans out there who are still angry about all of that – and while I can understand this, I encourage all of them to simply turn the page on this specific aspect of the whole thing and focus on the admirable way in which State has handled what was, in fact, the most challenging existential threat to the institution in its history.
The way the university and community faced that challenge through and with compassion, determination, leadership, and acknowledgement of failures has allowed the institution to learn, grow, and move forward.
What has the University of Michigan done?
What have all the Michigan Men and Women done?
Where are the journalists committed so deeply to digging in and finding the truth about the injustices we face as a culture?
Has Jim Harbaugh been asked a single question about his time as a player for Bo Schembechler that was, quite literally, right in the middle of Dr. Robert Anderson’s reign of criminal terror in Ann Arbor?
Has anyone considered placing a phone call into Gary Moeller?
I know that Lloyd Carr is an untouchable – but has anyone thought to themselves, “Maybe we should have a talk with Coach Carr…”
Juwan Howard was a key member of the Fab Five, a group of student athletes that has been so celebrated for having won absolutely nothing at all and he was there as Dr. Robert Anderson ruined the lives of hundreds and hundreds of UMAAers.
There is a statue of UMAA’s patron saint outside of the building that bears his name and, it would seem, as if the raising of a statue of Ted Kaczynski might be on the agenda for the next Board of Trustees meeting to take place in Ann Arbor.
Speaking of the UMAA Board – those people loudly denigrated and ridiculed State not too long ago.
Has anyone who lives and works back there thought about asking one or all those career-long administers of academia about what the hell went on at that place for 30 or 40 years?
John U. Bacon has written enough celebratory books to fill up every hipster Ann Arbor coffee house and he’s and done enough solipsistic impressions of Bo Schembechler to give Lorne Michaels reason to consider not accepting Bacon as a featured contributor from time to time.
If you’re a real journalist and if you’re a true Michigan Man or Woman, how about asking a single question about the thing that can’t even be described as an elephant in the room since there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of UMAAers who have filed lawsuits that claim they were sexually assaulted by one of Bo Schembechler’s most trusted staffers for decades?
Jim Harbaugh hasn’t been asked a single question about this whole tragedy??
Here’s a very simple guide:
“Hi, Jim. Did Dr. Robert Anderson ever treat you while you played quarterback for Bo Schembechler and, if so, what was that experience like for you? And a quick follow up – over the years that you were a member of Bo Schembechler’s program, were you ever aware of teammates who experienced what hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of former student athletes who played for Bo Schembechler have said they experienced?”
How hard is it to ask those questions to a man who is currently responsible for the complete oversight of the football program, who is a celebrated former player for the program, and who, one would have to assume, received at least the most minimally-required treatment from the doctor in question?
Jim Harbaugh has, over the years, spoken about Bo Schembechler in the way a son speaks of the father he loves and respects.
Did Jim Harbaugh ever see, hear, think, talk about, consider what, seemingly, every football player dating back to the hiring of Bo Schembechler appears to have a pretty specific understanding of?
Ask Lupe Izzo what it was like for her husband when State was dealing with all of this.
Mark Dantonio was harassed as if he was John Wayne Gacy’s accomplice.
How about the various UMAA presidents that have run the institution over the handful of decades when this monster was sexually assaulting UMAA athletes with Schembechler, Moeller, Carr, Steve Fisher, and the rest of these people right down the hall?
Yeah, we know – Don Canham and Bo Schembechler are dead.
So what?
All these other people aren’t.
Schembechler didn’t know?
I’ll listen to the UMAAers whine about Desmond Howard dropping the pass.
I’ll listen to them whine about whether that final second should have been left on the clock.
What I won’t ever listen to is anyone claiming that Schembechler, Canham, Moeller, Carr, Howard, Steve Fisher, Woodson, Wheatley, and, most relevantly right now, Jim Harbaugh didn’t know what the hell was going on at that place as that monster did whatever the hell he wanted with impunity.
Memo to all “journalists,” opiners, pundits, experts, editors, reporters, and administrators – stand up and act like professionals and do your jobs.
When you literally establish your institution with the sanctimonious predicate of being the “leaders and best,” you leave yourself very little margin for error.
When you commit an error – or, more to the point, when you allow a decades-long nightmarish run of criminality to occur that ruins lives due to a UMAA staff member being given the freedom to sexually assault hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids who chose the university based on the aforementioned predicate – you have an obligation to own the errors and fix them.
At the very least, you should be challenged for what sure does appear to be one of the most egregious failures of leadership imaginable.
You all live in the biggest, gaudiest, most poorly built glass house in the history of man.
And your glass house doesn’t have a roof.
And the basement is flooded.
And there isn’t any indoor plumbing.
And you walk around inside of it as if it’s a glorious English Tudor worthy of cover treatment from Town & Country.
It’s made of glass and everyone can see right into it.
Inside of that eyesore, it’s as ugly as it gets.
Coach Harbaugh’s music video that he did a long time ago asked the rhetorical question, “Who’s got it better than us?”
I know at least one place that provides a very proud answer to the ridiculous question.
State.
_______________________________________________________________________
First, think back to when Jim Harbaugh claimed that his student athletes were victims of a “Stormtrooper March” as Mark Dantonio’s football team did what it did before every single home game from the start of the Dantonio Era (without there ever being any “incident” of any kind at all) – it walked across its home field.
The UMAA student athletes’ behavior in that ridiculous fiasco will always be emblematic of the DNA of that football program.
I’ll say this – if my own son behaved like the guy who had the temper tantrum highlighted by the stomping, the cleating, the yelling, the babyish gyrations, the stomping, the scuffing, the yelling, and the overall insanity, my son would be cleaning toilets at the YMCA every Sunday morning for six-to-eight months and he wouldn’t be allowed to have any ice cream after dinner.
Now, think back to when Shea Patterson took the cues from his institution and program and gloated in the locker room, speaking about how he and his teammates took pleasure in running up the score en route to a 44-10 win over State in Ann Arbor.
Those were a couple of rough day for all Spartans.
The man who will forever go down as one of the greatest Spartans of all time took a beating and when Patterson stuck in the dagger with that late heave to run up the score in Ann Arbor, it felt like that was the end of the road after what had been the best run for the Green & White in a long, long time.
A few months after that loss in Ann Arbor, Mark Dantonio chose to step down as the head coach for a school he had become synonymous with due to the way in which he won, the way in which he embodied so much of what the university stands for, and for the way he instilled a pride and passion that was (and still is) impossible to quantify.
The timing was awkward.
The resignation itself was abrupt and a bit hard to watch.
The subsequent search for the replacement of the winningest coach in school history was a bit bumpy.
A head coach was hired and while it was clear from the moment Mel Tucker arrived that he wasn’t coming to East Lansing to take a nap, many Spartans wondered if challenging days were back to stay.
That was way, way, way back in………….late 2019 and early 2020.
It’s October of 2021 right now.
If you were concerned about the ghost of Muddy Waters influencing the football program in Beast Lansing for the foreseeable future, have you realized that this whole situation took about ten minutes to develop?
Let’s also take a moment to look at what so many experts had been referring to as the “falling off of a cliff” nature of State’s football program.
We’ll use five years dating back to the 2016 debacle of a season that came after State’s 3rd Big Ten Championship in five years and an appearance in the College Football Playoff as a reasonable time-period to gauge the credibility of “falling off of a cliff.”
3-9.
10-3.
7-6.
7-6.
2-5 in a season that anyone with a brain will acknowledge will forever have fifty asterisks next to it – especially for a program with a brand-new head coach who didn’t know many of the names of his players and hadn’t yet had more than two hours of practice time as a team when the “season” began.
27-24 over Dantonio’s final four seasons – with a 2-5 mark in Tucker’s first season to lead to an overall mark of 29-29 by my arithmetic.
27-24 or 29-29 – take your pick - isn’t going to go down as a phenomenal five-year stretch by any measure.
But it also isn’t exactly Kansas or Kent State or Massachusetts.
Let’s now use the 2017 season to start the five-year stretch and include the seven games played thus far this season.
33-20.
33-20 overall record for State since way, way, way, way, back to 2017.
It’s perfectly fair – and probably accurate – to simply say that, understandably, Mark Dantonio and his staff that won three Big Ten Championships, reached the College Football Playoff, earned countless memorably epic victories over rivals of all kinds, had run out of gas.
Have you worked 80- or 90-hour work weeks for 13 straight years, committing yourself to such an extent that your family is compromised, your “social life” is non-existent, you’ve subjected yourself to endlessly irrational criticism from people who literally have no idea what they’re talking about, you’ve suffered a heart attack only to get right back to work about ten days later, and become the highest-achieving employee in the history of the company or business for which you work?
It’s understandable – there are “factions” that get persnickety when Dantonio is criticized in retrospect.
Don’t begrudge them, folks.
The run was absolutely amazing and the man dedicated himself to State in a way that very, very few people ever have.
And if you’re inclined to point out the incredible ways that Mel Tucker has brilliantly revitalized the program, just take a moment to consider every one of these Spartan Dawgs –
Payton Thorne.
Jayden Reed.
Jalen Nailor.
Virtually the entire offensive line.
Xavier Henderson.
Connor Heyward.
Tre Mosely.
Drew Beesley.
Jacub Panasiuk.
Matt Coghlin.
Bryce Barringer.
Michael Dowell.
Brandon Wright.
Noah Harvey.
Jacob Slade.
Deshaun Mallory.
Tyler Hunt.
Harlan Barnett.
Ron Burton.
Ted Gilmore.
Lorenzo Guess.
Darien Harris.
Dr. Sally Nogle.
Every one of these Spartans was a significant member of Mark Dantonio’s program.
And now, every single one of these Spartans is a significant part of Mel Tucker’s program.
Which means, these Spartans and all the others who have since joined are a part of a true program that has demonstrated the ability to transition, reignite, progress, battle, grow – and win.
What Mel Tucker has done is remarkable and he’s only just getting started.
And the people who live in the glass house are soiling their pants.
And for all the angst that was palpable all of 18 months ago, perhaps the most significant thing Tucker has done is REIGNITE a program that had gotten stale.
But the reignition doesn’t mean a thing without scheme, talent, a brilliant strategic approach to the transfer portal (if a coach isn’t winning here, it’s no different than if he simply chooses not to recruit), a daily focus on The Process, in-game coaching, halftime and in-game adjustments, player development, a mastery of man-to-man motivation, and one of the more essential elements necessary for a college football head coach to be as successful as possible: a deep understanding of and respect for the traditions and cultural foundation of the institution.
If you didn’t see the foundation of what’s happening now being established during last “season,” you weren’t watching closely enough (and that’s okay).
God bless Rocky Lombardi.
We wish him nothing but the best – and he will forever have a place in State’s proud history for the way he orchestrated the humiliating body blow in Ann Arbor last year.
In retrospect, we can understand why Tucker properly chose Lombardi as his main man last “season” – he knew the names of his teammates, his experience allowed him to handle things even though the team had about as much time practicing together as it’s taken me to write this column, and he was likely to make the least total of major gaffes.
Seven games into the 2021 season, we can clearly see that Tucker and his staff have been able to operate with a full tank of gas.
Payton Thorne is a Redshirt Sophomore and is poised to grow into one of the all-time great Spartan quarterbacks.
Reed, Nailor, Mosley – these guys are showing that Mark Dantonio was right in bringing them to Beast Lansing and that Tucker and Jay Johnson know how to exploit these weapons.
Kenneth Walker III?
Even after K9’s “poor” performance at Bloomington (84 yards isn’t exactly crappy), he leads the nation in rushing with 997 yards through seven games.
The next game State plays will take place on October 30th and if the Heisman Trophy were to be awarded on October 31st, K9 would take home the door stop.
Cal Haladay?
For anyone wondering if Tucker knows what a Spartan linebacker is supposed to be like, simply watch this maniac and stop wondering.
QCrouch?
See the sentence I just wrote about Cal Haladay.
If anyone has questioned whether another Jerel Worthy might ever suit up in Green and White again, watch Simeon Barrow (a Redshirt Freshman) for a few plays.
The story for most of the season has been the offensive firepower – and for good reason.
When you average 34 points a game, you’re putting yourself in position to win a lot of games.
However, State’s defense is starting to show the balance of this team.
A lot of talk from some of the experts about how State’s defense gives up yards.
Okay.
State is giving up an average of 18 points a game.
That’s good for 21st in the nation.
You’re gonna win a lot of games when you give up only 18 points a game.
When you combine that with an offense that averages 34 points a game, it sort of doesn’t matter where the defense ranks nationally in the category, does it?
Through seven games in 2021, State has 26 sacks.
That’s good for third in the nation.
Georgia is fifth in the nation in sacks.
State’s turnover margin is +5, good for 26th in the nation.
That’s hardly crappy.
Matt Coghlin absolutely drilled two massive field goals against Indiana – one for 52 yards and one for 49 yards.
But just as important is the way in which Coghlin is destroying kickoffs – his touchback percentage is above 90%.
Think back to a few seasons ago when reaching the endzone on a kickoff wasn’t even realistic – and the kickoff coverage was not strong.
Coghlin has given the defense the opportunity to start from a strong position on virtually every possession.
Bryce Barringer doesn’t just look phenomenal in those bifocals – his boots average a distance of 49 yards with a net average of 44 yards.
Jayden Reed is very good at returning punts.
Mel Tucker talks constantly about playing “complementary football – offense, defense, and special teams.”
That can sound like coachspeak – but with Tucker, that’s not just how he talks – that’s how he runs his program every single day.
If you watch and listen closely to Tucker as he talks about football, you might be reminded of something he said in his introductory press conference.
“If you love football, I’m probably going to like you.”
In other words, this guy eats, drinks, breathes, and sleeps football.
And now he’s eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping Spartan Football.
If you’ve had a chance to spend any time with Tucker, you might get the sense that he’s manically and - maybe even obsessively - focused on his mission.
At a place like State, I’ve always believed that the head man almost needs to have an obsessive commitment to the job.
The challenges are different than they are in Columbus or South Bend or Tuscaloosa or Norman or Ann Arbor.
The man in charge in Beast Lansing must not only recognize but embrace the fact that it’s a constant uphill battle that calls for more, more, more across all aspects of the job.
Not even the great Nick Saban had what it took to swim down to the deepest parts of the water and drag the rivals down there where life is hard and everything must be earned with toughness, grit, determination, and, yes, an obsessive commitment.
Mark Dantonio knew all of this.
His respected friend and brother-in-arms who has picked up the baton that was handed over to him knows this perhaps better than anyone that’s come before him.
More importantly, this isn’t just how Tucker approaches his “job” – this is how the guy approaches his life.
If you were a coach or a fan or a radio blabberer or a pundit or a recruiter or a simpleton who loves to Twitter and you were trying to pretend like this guy at State isn’t in the process of doing what he’s doing, you won’t convince me you aren’t freaking out about this whole thing.
And brace yourself, folks – this thing is only just getting started.
As we all begin to prepare for what is guaranteed to be one of the more memorable Saturdays along the banks of the Red Cedar, as yourself these very simple questions within the context of the current realities:
Which football program would you rather hitch your wagon to?
Which head coach would you rather have leading the charge, establishing the vision, executing the process, and leading the entire operation?
To which culture would rather belong?
And, which football players would you rather have on the team you’ll be pulling for on October 30th?
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