Hello fellow Maggers,
I started writing this post the morning of OSU, and wanted to save it until the dust had settled from Sat's game. I've been a poster here for almost 20 years, and thought it was a good time to take a big picture look at the football program. With that, I give you ........
The State of State
Ladies and Gentlemen- Oh what a time to be a Spartan.
I hope that all of you are well, and enjoying this ride. In the last few days, I ’ve taken time to reflect back on Tucker’s tenure to date. In this post, I’m going to sum up my thoughts on where we were, where we are, and a few predictions for where we are going. Here we go folks….
A Sleeping Giant Rises:
Full disclosure, I went to MSU from 2002-2006, and I’ve followed recruiting since 2002. I suffered through Bobby, and my soul barely made it through John L. Mike Valenti was my spirit animal on September 24, 2006 post-ND collapse. After falling in love with MSU as an out of state kid, MSU football continued to break my heart. After the 2006 season, we hired Coach D from Cincy- a hard-nosed coach from Ohio with a track record of winning. 2007-15 was a run that I had never dreamt possible. Multiple bowl wins, being ranked, wins over Michigan, a Rose Bowl win, a Cotton Bowl win, Big Ten titles, Little Giants, Rangers, a CFP berth… oh my!!!! For once, MSU was respected as a football power. We were no longer a running Same Old Spartans joke. Coach D created a culture of accountability and winning that we had never seen before.
I tried to soak it up because I knew it could go away quickly, and sadly it did. The last 4 years of Coach D were tough to watch. After our CFP birth, our program hit a wall for a variety of reasons that aren’t the focus of this post.
It’s Over:
As we all know, the Coach D era ended abruptly when our community was rocked by the news that Coach D was retiring on 2/4/2020. My initial reaction was: “holy hell how are we going to land a head coach since NSD 2020 is literally the next day”. In the coming days, we heard names from Pat Shurmur to Luke Fickell to Mel Tucker to Mike Tressel and Brett Bielema. Things intensified with Fickell, news leaked left and right something was imminent yet- Luke Fickell turned down MSU on 2/10. Back to the drawing board we went, and 2 days later we hired Mel Tucker, a first year coach at Colorado with deep NFL, SEC, and Big Ten ties.
I hated that we were doing a coaching search after NSD. However, I was thrilled that we landed a coach with a great coaching background and a rep as a recruiter, but light on HC experience. I was excited to see what he could do with an offseason/spring practice. Unfortunately, we all know what happened next. Tucker would not get that opportunity due to the pandemic. Tucker would never use it as an excuse, but he inherited a tough deck of cards: 1) hired after NSD 2020, 2) no on-campus visits for any recruit the first 15 months, 3) no spring ball, 4) a covid shutdown during summer camp, 5) talent deficiencies galore across the roster. It’s insane to think that Tucker and his staff had to install their base stuff all over Zoom calls. I still remember seeing video online of Coach Els setting up cones and such to mimic punt coverage. Insanity!!!
The first year was a struggle. 2 wins over ranked opponents, and importantly a win over your primary rival Michigan. I would have liked to of seen more Peyton Thorne beyond OSU/PSU. Overall, I felt that Tucker did the best with what he had available to him on the field and off the field with recruiting. In my opinion, it was impossible to give Tucker’s first year a grade considering how abnormal of a situation he walked into. My outstanding questions going into year 2 were: 1) how will Tucker improve talent on this roster? and 2) can Tucker coach? (very difficult question to assess in year 1 given the talent deficiencies). On a side note, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again- we will never see as many recruiting misses as we will from the 2021 recruiting class nationally. Coaches essentially had to recruit kids based on either abbreviated seasons or Jr film with no opportunity to trip them in to see if they based the personality or eyeball test.
What’s a Transfer Portal?
Fast forward to Dec 2020, Mel has finished his first season at MSU. By his standards, it was a disappointment. He was adamant in year-end press conferences that mediocrity would not be tolerated at MSU. If you were going to play at MSU, you had to give 110% and be all in. We all know what came next- a mass exodus of Coach D era players. In hindsight, I expected many of these players to transfer out. We did have some surprises, but thus is life in college football, right?? After these departures, Tucker and his staff had the unique challenge of not only navigating the transfer portal, but attacking it until they found the “dudes” that they needed to reboot MSU football.
The portal was intriguing to me. I honestly followed it more than I did with any single MSU recruitment since 2002. This whole situation was different- immediate eligibility, significant available PT, and a recruiting pitch centered on selling hope without the ability to host portal players face to face. When the portal recruitments were going on, I was shocked by how wide a net his staff cast to identify talent and the level of talent he was in touch with. We landed multiple 3 and 4 star recruits from the portal. It’s funny to think that one of the guys we didn’t land but were in contention for is the likely Biletnikoff winner and 1st WR drafted this year. The staff appeared to identify high-level talent, but the challenge was how in the hell do you bring in over 40 new players (recruits + transfers) and merge them with your returning talent. Another layer to this was how do you do this while rebooting the culture of a program.
Hope realized
Tucker brought in the talent, and now it was time to implement his plan. This started with winter/spring conditioning and a new nutrition program. The early results from spring ball and the before/after player transformations were both shocking and encouraging. They were enough to give me hope for a solid Year 2 in the Mel Tucker era. Going into the season, my projection was 5-7 wins. I based that largely on Tucker having an offseason of practice/S&C work, and his portal activity. I thought 7 was possible if he beat Michigan for a second year in a row. Miami, PSU, and OSU were guaranteed losses on the schedule.
Fast forward to November and you know the deal. Tucker’s process for the portal is the model that teams will be following for years to come. Famously, Dabo has a policy that Clemson doesn’t believe in the portal- well, I think that will change because the game has changed with NIL and the portal. We somehow landed a Heisman trophy finalist out of the portal, are 9-2, beat both Miami and Michigan- all things unthinkable 21 months ago when Tucker was hired. Tucker. Tucker has MSU positioned with a top 20 recruiting class comprised of national recruits with strong potential to close stronger. Insane statement considering other fanbases thought MSU could only be good when they recruited MI, IL, OH well.
What’s Next
I think that it’s an understatement to say this season has been a resounding success. If you go back to May/June 2021, the over/under on season wins was 4.5 so in effect we doubled our win total. The scary thing is Tucker did all of this selling hope in the portal and with the 21 recruiting class. Tucker inherited one hell of a reclamation project. The last few games have demonstrated that the roster still has needs that require attention. We simply put do not have functional depth at vital positions (e.g. OL, DB, S). With respect to scheme, I’ve had serious questions for the last 2 years about if the 4-2-5 is viable in the Big Ten. To those paying attention, this should not be a surprise. Yes, Tucker brought in talent, but a) the coach D guys are only 1.5 years into this scheme, and b) the Tucker guys have been learning it on the fly since arriving in August. It’s hard to have plug and play guys when everyone is still learning. Beyond talent, this scheme seems like a disaster in the Big ten, and it has gotten lit up a lot over the last 2 years.
Thankfully, Tucker can now go anywhere in America to preach results with the hope for a better future. MSU sees potential in Tucker’s vision and is about to make Tucker one of the highest paid coaches in all of sports. This is our swing for the fences moment with all chips on the table. I’m good with it. I’ve always wanted the program to go all in instead of waiting for a top 10 team to come poach our coach.
Others have alluded to it, but this feels different for a variety of reasons. We have a young coach in the middle of one of the most impressive turnarounds in college football history, who is soon to be committed to the university long-term. We have an AD that is in lock step with Coach D, Coach Tucker, and Coach Izzo. We have state of the art facilities on the way. We have finally embraced that social media and college football are a thing. We have or are developing relationships for national powerhouses like Bosco, Bishop Gorman, and IMG. Lastly, we have the bankroll now with big-time donors laying it on the line for the program. As this goes on, I expect others like Draymond to pump more into the program as well. In total, I don’t think that we’ve seen this level of MSU having its stuff together in any of our lives. Hollis, Izzo, and Coach D was good, but this has the potential to be on a whole another level.
With all this said, what are the remaining questions that need to be addressed:
I started writing this post the morning of OSU, and wanted to save it until the dust had settled from Sat's game. I've been a poster here for almost 20 years, and thought it was a good time to take a big picture look at the football program. With that, I give you ........
The State of State
Ladies and Gentlemen- Oh what a time to be a Spartan.
I hope that all of you are well, and enjoying this ride. In the last few days, I ’ve taken time to reflect back on Tucker’s tenure to date. In this post, I’m going to sum up my thoughts on where we were, where we are, and a few predictions for where we are going. Here we go folks….
A Sleeping Giant Rises:
Full disclosure, I went to MSU from 2002-2006, and I’ve followed recruiting since 2002. I suffered through Bobby, and my soul barely made it through John L. Mike Valenti was my spirit animal on September 24, 2006 post-ND collapse. After falling in love with MSU as an out of state kid, MSU football continued to break my heart. After the 2006 season, we hired Coach D from Cincy- a hard-nosed coach from Ohio with a track record of winning. 2007-15 was a run that I had never dreamt possible. Multiple bowl wins, being ranked, wins over Michigan, a Rose Bowl win, a Cotton Bowl win, Big Ten titles, Little Giants, Rangers, a CFP berth… oh my!!!! For once, MSU was respected as a football power. We were no longer a running Same Old Spartans joke. Coach D created a culture of accountability and winning that we had never seen before.
I tried to soak it up because I knew it could go away quickly, and sadly it did. The last 4 years of Coach D were tough to watch. After our CFP birth, our program hit a wall for a variety of reasons that aren’t the focus of this post.
It’s Over:
As we all know, the Coach D era ended abruptly when our community was rocked by the news that Coach D was retiring on 2/4/2020. My initial reaction was: “holy hell how are we going to land a head coach since NSD 2020 is literally the next day”. In the coming days, we heard names from Pat Shurmur to Luke Fickell to Mel Tucker to Mike Tressel and Brett Bielema. Things intensified with Fickell, news leaked left and right something was imminent yet- Luke Fickell turned down MSU on 2/10. Back to the drawing board we went, and 2 days later we hired Mel Tucker, a first year coach at Colorado with deep NFL, SEC, and Big Ten ties.
I hated that we were doing a coaching search after NSD. However, I was thrilled that we landed a coach with a great coaching background and a rep as a recruiter, but light on HC experience. I was excited to see what he could do with an offseason/spring practice. Unfortunately, we all know what happened next. Tucker would not get that opportunity due to the pandemic. Tucker would never use it as an excuse, but he inherited a tough deck of cards: 1) hired after NSD 2020, 2) no on-campus visits for any recruit the first 15 months, 3) no spring ball, 4) a covid shutdown during summer camp, 5) talent deficiencies galore across the roster. It’s insane to think that Tucker and his staff had to install their base stuff all over Zoom calls. I still remember seeing video online of Coach Els setting up cones and such to mimic punt coverage. Insanity!!!
The first year was a struggle. 2 wins over ranked opponents, and importantly a win over your primary rival Michigan. I would have liked to of seen more Peyton Thorne beyond OSU/PSU. Overall, I felt that Tucker did the best with what he had available to him on the field and off the field with recruiting. In my opinion, it was impossible to give Tucker’s first year a grade considering how abnormal of a situation he walked into. My outstanding questions going into year 2 were: 1) how will Tucker improve talent on this roster? and 2) can Tucker coach? (very difficult question to assess in year 1 given the talent deficiencies). On a side note, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again- we will never see as many recruiting misses as we will from the 2021 recruiting class nationally. Coaches essentially had to recruit kids based on either abbreviated seasons or Jr film with no opportunity to trip them in to see if they based the personality or eyeball test.
What’s a Transfer Portal?
Fast forward to Dec 2020, Mel has finished his first season at MSU. By his standards, it was a disappointment. He was adamant in year-end press conferences that mediocrity would not be tolerated at MSU. If you were going to play at MSU, you had to give 110% and be all in. We all know what came next- a mass exodus of Coach D era players. In hindsight, I expected many of these players to transfer out. We did have some surprises, but thus is life in college football, right?? After these departures, Tucker and his staff had the unique challenge of not only navigating the transfer portal, but attacking it until they found the “dudes” that they needed to reboot MSU football.
The portal was intriguing to me. I honestly followed it more than I did with any single MSU recruitment since 2002. This whole situation was different- immediate eligibility, significant available PT, and a recruiting pitch centered on selling hope without the ability to host portal players face to face. When the portal recruitments were going on, I was shocked by how wide a net his staff cast to identify talent and the level of talent he was in touch with. We landed multiple 3 and 4 star recruits from the portal. It’s funny to think that one of the guys we didn’t land but were in contention for is the likely Biletnikoff winner and 1st WR drafted this year. The staff appeared to identify high-level talent, but the challenge was how in the hell do you bring in over 40 new players (recruits + transfers) and merge them with your returning talent. Another layer to this was how do you do this while rebooting the culture of a program.
Hope realized
Tucker brought in the talent, and now it was time to implement his plan. This started with winter/spring conditioning and a new nutrition program. The early results from spring ball and the before/after player transformations were both shocking and encouraging. They were enough to give me hope for a solid Year 2 in the Mel Tucker era. Going into the season, my projection was 5-7 wins. I based that largely on Tucker having an offseason of practice/S&C work, and his portal activity. I thought 7 was possible if he beat Michigan for a second year in a row. Miami, PSU, and OSU were guaranteed losses on the schedule.
Fast forward to November and you know the deal. Tucker’s process for the portal is the model that teams will be following for years to come. Famously, Dabo has a policy that Clemson doesn’t believe in the portal- well, I think that will change because the game has changed with NIL and the portal. We somehow landed a Heisman trophy finalist out of the portal, are 9-2, beat both Miami and Michigan- all things unthinkable 21 months ago when Tucker was hired. Tucker. Tucker has MSU positioned with a top 20 recruiting class comprised of national recruits with strong potential to close stronger. Insane statement considering other fanbases thought MSU could only be good when they recruited MI, IL, OH well.
What’s Next
I think that it’s an understatement to say this season has been a resounding success. If you go back to May/June 2021, the over/under on season wins was 4.5 so in effect we doubled our win total. The scary thing is Tucker did all of this selling hope in the portal and with the 21 recruiting class. Tucker inherited one hell of a reclamation project. The last few games have demonstrated that the roster still has needs that require attention. We simply put do not have functional depth at vital positions (e.g. OL, DB, S). With respect to scheme, I’ve had serious questions for the last 2 years about if the 4-2-5 is viable in the Big Ten. To those paying attention, this should not be a surprise. Yes, Tucker brought in talent, but a) the coach D guys are only 1.5 years into this scheme, and b) the Tucker guys have been learning it on the fly since arriving in August. It’s hard to have plug and play guys when everyone is still learning. Beyond talent, this scheme seems like a disaster in the Big ten, and it has gotten lit up a lot over the last 2 years.
Thankfully, Tucker can now go anywhere in America to preach results with the hope for a better future. MSU sees potential in Tucker’s vision and is about to make Tucker one of the highest paid coaches in all of sports. This is our swing for the fences moment with all chips on the table. I’m good with it. I’ve always wanted the program to go all in instead of waiting for a top 10 team to come poach our coach.
Others have alluded to it, but this feels different for a variety of reasons. We have a young coach in the middle of one of the most impressive turnarounds in college football history, who is soon to be committed to the university long-term. We have an AD that is in lock step with Coach D, Coach Tucker, and Coach Izzo. We have state of the art facilities on the way. We have finally embraced that social media and college football are a thing. We have or are developing relationships for national powerhouses like Bosco, Bishop Gorman, and IMG. Lastly, we have the bankroll now with big-time donors laying it on the line for the program. As this goes on, I expect others like Draymond to pump more into the program as well. In total, I don’t think that we’ve seen this level of MSU having its stuff together in any of our lives. Hollis, Izzo, and Coach D was good, but this has the potential to be on a whole another level.
With all this said, what are the remaining questions that need to be addressed:
- How do we make up for the loss of Walker’s production in the run game?
- Will we see Tucker’s classes emerge on the OL and DL?
- Can we sell our on-field success to land even better talent from HS and the portal?
- What will happen with the defense? Does the scheme change or do we see a staff change?
- Who ascends to PT during bowl preparation and the actual game?
- How many transfers and HS kids can we get enrolled in January so that they participate in spring ball?
- The East will be a 4 team race between Michigan MSU PSU and OSU for the next 3-4 years.
- James Franklin leaves PSU for USC resulting in Matt Rhule returning to college with mixed results.
- MSU will finish 11-2 beating PSU and then Cincy in the Peach Bowl
- Tucker will get his payday after PSU.
- Tucker will win the portal again, but this time a bulk of his guys will be on campus for spring ball. The way he recruits- I don’t see him having to call folks this go around.
- MSU will sign 4-5 additional players to close out the class (we may have to call him the king of flipping after this)
- MSU will be a top 15 team preseason next year.
- MSU will go 10-2 in the regular season next year with another win over Michigan and losses to OSU and PSU (only due to a night white out)- https://fbschedules.com/ncaa-2022/team/michigan-state.
- Malik Spencer will play as much as Darius Snow has this year.
- Bold prediction: Spencer Brown will hold off challengers and start game 1 at RT.
- MSU will take 7 portal players: 1 RB, 1 S, 2 OL, 2 DE, 1 CB
