MSU football coach Tucker wants what Izzo has
One program a consistent winner; another in question
EAST LANSING — Mel Tucker strolled into the press room at the Breslin Center and plopped down in a chair, where the Michigan State football coach waited for his turn at the dais.
Tom Izzo had just gone into overtime at his basketball news conference, regaling the media with insights he gleaned over a distinguished career. Tucker understood his esteemed colleague would be a tough act to follow. That was reinforced almost immediately when several reporters in his midst reminded him of Izzo’s elevated stature, his record 25 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and his outsized role in the MSU community.
So, on the eve of March Madness and the Spartans' first spring football practice, Tucker paid deference.
“What Coach Izzo has done,” Tucker said Monday, “is beyond remarkable.”
Tucker made that statement with admiration and maybe a little bit of envy, too. After all, Izzo has achieved the kind of standard Tucker has yet to reach. The program Izzo has nurtured is as sure a bet as there is in his sport, a certified power that invites faith from its legion of supporters. The one that Tucker commands doesn’t inspire that same confidence among a green-tinged fan base who still wonders about the Spartans’ long-term trajectory under his leadership.
Is MSU’s reality closer to the harsh existence endured by the teams that finished with losing records in 2020 and 2022 or the sheer ecstasy created by the 11-2 ascension in 2021 that netted Tucker a $95 million contract? “I’m not sure how to answer that,” he said. Tucker doesn’t seem certain of much these days, which is a problem for a coach who covets the stability Izzo has established. Only a month before Spartan Stadium opens its doors to the public near the conclusion of spring practice, he can’t definitively say whether MSU will hold an actual intrasquad game.
It’s one of many question marks within a program that still bears the scars of last fall, when the Spartans unraveled before finishing 5-7 and missing the postseason. The trauma from that miserable slog has informed Tucker’s thinking this offseason.
It’s why he is staging an open competition at quarterback after the starter of the past two seasons, Payton Thorne, regressed in his overall performance.
It’s why he has changed the team’s training habits after seeing his starting lineup ravaged by injuries, hoping that a more individualized approach in practice will preserve the health of the roster.
It’s why he’s planning to replace pass rush specialist Brandon Jordan with another assistant in the secondary, knowing that the defensive backfield has been a liability since the dawn of his tenure.
“Sometimes you have to get beat, to get your face kicked in, where you can really lay the true foundation,” Tucker said. “That’s happened. Our guys are going to compete. We are going to fight.”
No one has ever doubted the resolve of Tucker’s bunch. Last year, they showed resilience both in the aftermath of a four-game losing streak and the Michigan Stadium tunnel incident that led to the suspensions of eight defensive players. Victories came in the face of adversity, as the team embodied Tucker’s “relentless” mantra. But while Tucker has been able to extract continuous effort from his players, he has yet to show he can get them to conjure consistent results from one year to the next. The supposed pillars of his team — the ground attack and defense — have been wild cards instead of dependable sectors, which was laid bare following star running back Kenneth Walker III’s departure.
With Walker no longer in the fold, the offense struggled to gain traction and Spartans rarely held the line when the other team had the ball. It was a poisonous formula and MSU had no antidote. The Spartans averaged the fewest rushing attempts and surrendered the highest pass completion percentage in the Big Ten, which showed how far MSU careened off track.
“That’s life,” former safety Xavier Henderson told the Free Press. “Sometimes (stuff) doesn’t work out how you want it to.”
But Tucker is paid a handsome sum to find solutions and position the Spartans so they can overcome bad outcomes or avoid them altogether. His charge is to prosper at a rate where it becomes hard for outsiders to question the program’s direction and the way it operates, where there is no opening for doubt to creep inside their heads, where the track record is so established it is beyond reproach. In other words, he must produce all the time.
“That’s how you win — you perform consistently at a high level, a winning level, day in and day out,” he said.
Month after month, year after year, and decade after decade. That’s how Izzo became one of the leading figures in his sport and a model example of sustained success during a career that has yet to be tarnished with a losing season.
“A living legend,” Tucker said.
It’s what he aspires to become. But for now, he just needs to be a stabilizing force for a program in search of its balance after a season when the Spartans were left dazed and confused about which way they are going.
Contact Rainer rsabin@ freepress.com. Follow Twitter @RainerSabin.