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For all the bashing that Michigan State’s football program has been enduring in the last seven days, the pulling power of Spartan football ended up looking pretty strong.
Late Tuesday night, now-former University of Colorado head coach Mel Tucker agreed in principle to become MSU’s 25th head football coach.
After the Luke Fickell debacle, I felt landing Tucker was the best - and maybe only - way for Michigan State football to correct a desperate situation. Michigan State, led by embattled Athletic Director Bill Beekman, got it done. It feels like they saved a baby from a burning barn.
A quest for Plan C’s beyond Tucker would have likely resulted in a new round of candidates, and perhaps a dip into the Mid-American Conference for prospects, or maybe college coordinators and who knows what else. There would have been some good coaches in that pool, but Tucker’s combination of a strong resumé at the college and NFL level, his proven ability as a recruiter, his Ohio ties, his Georgia ties, and his familiarity with the landscape at Michigan State, and the fact that he had excellent Michigan State references, put him on an equal footing with Fickell as a candidate, discernibly ahead of what would have been the next level of candidates.
The question was whether Michigan State could complete its walk of shame and get back to the table with him.
Tucker, 48, had bowed out of MSU’s coaching search on Saturday night, after interviewing with Beekman and the Michigan State search team. He felt Michigan State had pegged Fickell as its top target, saw the direction of things, and dropped out.
He didn’t “turn Michigan State down,” as the bashers nauseatingly reported and contended. Michigan State didn’t offer him the job.
But here were the Spartans, just three days later, desperately hoping for another shot at Tucker. Michigan State is a strong enough brand that Tucker gave Spartan football another shot.
Tucker impressed Beekman and company during Saturday’s interview in Colorado. They shook hands, went their separate ways. Beekman pressed on for Fickell for another 24 hours, but Tucker had made an impression.
Tucker was listed high on MSU’s initial war room board of potential candidates. Mark Dantonio had coached with him at Michigan State and Ohio State. Nick Saban had coached with him at Michigan State, where Tucker was a graduate assistant in 1997 and ’98, and again at LSU and again at Alabama. Saban has watched him grow up. Tucker had coached under Jim Tressel at Ohio State. His references ran high when search committee members such as Beekman, Alan Haller and Tom Izzo spoke with Saban and Tressel about him.
Tucker had announced via Twitter on Saturday, in pulling out of the Michigan State coaching derby, that he was once again all-in for the Colorado Buffaloes. As late as Tuesday afternoon, during an interview on a Denver radio station, he continued to state that he was committed to the Buffs, while saying he took MSU’s interest as a compliment. “We must be doing something right,” Tucker said.
Apparently so, because Michigan State was gearing up to go get him. This time, they weren’t merely inquiring about Tucker, they were applying a full-court press. The task wasn’t easy.
Coaches don’t like to turn away from a job hunt, re-up with their current team, and then change course again. Coaches don’t like to spend just one year at a program and move on. It doesn't look good. In order to sign with Michigan State, Tucker was going to have to do those two uncomfortable things.
Tucker was willing to do that, due to the pull of Michigan State. He was willing to give this program a second chance. He is ready.
Leaving Colorado after only one season, will that be a stigma on his career? Probably no more than when Saban left Toledo after one year as head coach to go back to the NFL.
But Tucker's jump to Michigan State will raise more eyebrows, because, this is Michigan State.
As defensive coordinator at Georgia in 2018, Tucker was ranked among the Top 25 recruiters in the country by Rivals.com. This came at a time when Georgia was putting together the best recruiting class in the nation.
But that’s Georgia. Michigan State doesn’t have Georgia’s radius of recruitable talent. Recruiting at Michigan State requires a different level of evaluation and back-slapping.
There’s little question that Tucker, a native of Cleveland and a graduate of Cleveland Heights High School, has the ability to hammer the backchannels of the Midwest just fine.
Colorado’s 2020 recruiting class, Tucker’s first full-year cycle with the Buffaloes, ranks No. 32 in the national rankings and No. 5 in the Pac-12. (MSU’s class ranks No. 38).
The No. 32 ranking ties for the best recruiting class Colorado has had in the Rivals.com rankings since 2008. Recruiting to Colorado isn't easy. Prior to Tucker's arrival, Colorado's previous 10 recruiting classes were ranked No. 55, 62, 42, 65, 63, 69, 68, 32 and 51.
Tucker made some in-roads this year. Colorado signed three 4-star recruits in 2020: a running back from New Orleans, a defensive back from Texas and a wide receiver from Arizona.
As head coach at Colorado, he had to leave the home state to do the bulk of his recruiting. His 24-man class included only two players from Colorado. He recruited nationally, signing players from nine states, including six from Texas, five from California, two each from Arizona, Mississippi, Georgia and Colorado and one each from Louisiana, Ohio, Kansas and Massachusetts.
Colorado is just a two-state jump from Texas and California. Replicating that kind of recruiting at Michigan State will be tricky, but he can probably take MSU’s solid recruiting effort in Georgia and ramp it up with an occasional dip into Texas and California.
Tucker’s resumé matches up closely with Fickell’s. In fact, the two resumés offer astonishing parallels.
* They are both Ohioans who played defense for Big Ten schools (Fickell for Ohio State and Tucker for Wisconsin).
* They were both graduate assistants at Big Ten schools in the late 1990s for eventual National Championship coaches.
* They both spent a short time as defensive assistant coaches in the MAC: Tucker at Miami of Ohio in 1999; Fickell at Akron in 2000-01.
* They both returned to work for those National Championship coaches - Tucker to Saban, and Fickell to Tressel - as position coaches.
* They spent time together on Tressel’s staff at Ohio State. Tucker was defensive backs coach at Ohio State from 2001 to 2003, and co-defensive coordinator in 2004. Fickell was special teams coach and linebackers coach from 2002 to 2004. Fickell replaced Tucker as co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State in 2005.
They each won a National Championship in 2004 under Tressel.
This is where they took a different path:
* Whereas Fickell remained in the college ranks at Ohio State for a total of 15 years and eventually parlayed that into a head coaching job at Cincinnati in 2017, Tucker spent 10 years in the NFL.
* Fickell spent one season as interim head coach at Ohio State in 2011 and finished one game under .500 (6-7). Tucker spent five games as an interim head coach in the NFL that very same year, in 2011, with the Jacksonville Jaguars and finished one game under .500 (2-3).
* Wheras Fickell got his head coaching start at Cincinnati in 2017, Tucker left the NFL and went back to college coaching at big-time programs Alabama (2015) and Georgia (2016) under Saban and Kirby Smart. Tucker won a second National Championship for a second coach in 2015 with Saban at Alabama, just like Fickell had done in 2014 with Urban Meyer. And then Tucker played for another with Georgia in 2017.
In Fickell’s first year as a head coach, he went 4-8 at Cincinnati.
In Tucker’s first year as a head coach, he went 5-7 at Colorado.
The main difference is that Fickell has had a chance to put two more seasons as head coach on the ledger. And he knocked it out with a pair of 11-win seasons.
But let's be real. If Tucker had posted a pair of 11-win seasons at Colorado by now, Michigan State would have to get behind some top schools for a shot at his services. So there's an element of buying on the rise here with Tucker and Michigan State.
The other difference that you’re likely to hear about from the bashers in the days ahead is that Tucker was Plan B.
Well, he isn’t the first Plan B to become head coach at Michigan State. Saban was MSU’s Plan B, behind Penn State offensive coordinator Fran Ganter in 1994. Saban has done pretty well.
For that matter, Saban was Alabama’s Plan B in 2007 behind Rich Rodriguez. Bama dodged a bullet there.
So it’s true. Tucker was the Plan B. He’s comfortable with that, maybe he'll be motivated by that. And isn’t that the Michigan State way? Would you want it any other way?