I’ve expressed this before. During my lifetime of following Michigan State football, all I knew was success under former head coach, now associate head coach, and still the winningest coach in MSU history, Mark Dantonio.
I began my role within the media covering the Spartans at the beginning of Dantonio’s end, essentially like being born into nobility in a collapsing empire. It felt like a fever dream from then until now.
MSU was establishing its ground as a perennial power, but its foothold slowly eroded away after its stint in the national spotlight.
Tasked with covering his abrupt retirement announcement, I, being the 19-year-old who saw MSU football and Dantonio as one and the same, struggled to interpret what his stepping down meant in the grand scheme. I still do now.
Some cited how his receiving a $4.3 million retention bonus, while some questioned if the fallout from the arrests of four highly-touted players for sexual assault, prompted his swift departure.
Dantonio’s retirement presser, the day before National Signing Day in 2020, which he termed a “celebration,” ultimately left both sides embittered and with the chance to become a national power officially squandered. Michigan State had to scramble to find its next head coach in the crux of the college football offseason.
Enter Mel Tucker.
MSU’s now-suspended-without-pay head football coach arrived on campus after a whirlwind of a coaching search.
The Spartans missed out on who many believed to be MSU's primary target, former Cincinnati head coach (and now at Wisconsin) Luke Fickell, reportedly due in part to to Fickell’s wife’s reservations about the culture at MSU, specifically with respect to sexual misconduct.
Tucker’s introductory presser, even at the time, was equally as perplexing as Dantonio’s farewell session.
“My dream was to come back and be the head coach.” Tucker said, referring to his stint as a graduate assistant at MSU under Nick Saban.
I think most people saw right through this. Tucker declined to interview for MSU’s official offer until the Spartans got desperate, re-raised, and Tucker called.
The insight I got after the presser was encouraging at the time, though equally head-scratching in retrospect.
I was one of the first within the media to meet and shake hands with Tucker in a casual conversation with beat writers. The former Colorado head coach cited an objective approach to every situation and level headedness as attributes he would bring to MSU.
Hell, Tucker's “clean slate” approach with all players led to current Pittsburgh Steelers fullback/tight end Connor Heyward’s withdrawal from the transfer portal and return to MSU.
This was nothing groundbreaking at the time, but it felt like a step in the right direction after the two parties, Tucker and MSU, seemingly arrived at that point in a fit of desperation.
Through 2021-2022, though, the program’s trajectory seemed to be angling higher than most expected.
Heyward, of course, went on to carve an ever-growing role with MSU in his final two seasons in school, including key contributions in victories over Michigan in Ann Arbor and East Lansing, and Pittsburgh in Atlanta.
Kenneth Walker III transferred in from Wake Forest to embark on a Doak Walker Award--caliber campaign and led the Spartans to Tucker’s second win over Michigan in as many seasons, rushing for five touchdowns in arguably the most highly-touted matchup in the rivalry’s history.
Payton Thorne had one of the best statistical seasons in MSU history, breaking Kirk Cousins’ passing touchdown record in East Lansing with 27 passing scores.
Things were looking up. Winning fixes everything.
The arc evidently turned much quicker this time around, and the Spartans started facing adversity in 2022. A 5-7 campaign for the Spartans last year saw its head coach become increasingly flippant in pressers and disengaged overall, voicing comments, self-deprecating by design as they were, like being a “horsesh*it football coach.” Tucker personally overtook the secondary that ranked dead last in the nation during 2021, but its successor performed just as poorly under his watch last year.
He failed to make staff changes, an overriding theme at the end of Dantonio’s tenure, as the offense stalled, the defense struggled, and the recruiting and player retention, while trending up for a time, eventually stagnated.
Still, there's no denying that the talent level on the roster increased under Tucker.
But take the attention to detail and modernity that he brought to the program in 2021 and couple that with comments this year like loathing a lack of NIL support to get the players necessary to compete or, “We’ll never be good enough to take teams lightly. We never have been. We never will be.”
Tucker’s tone early this year was ambivalent at best.
Maybe he was just seeking his payday, which is now subject to voidance, to which he agreed in the form of a $95 million contract over 10 years.
But through his comments and actions (or lack thereof) over last year and early this season, he seemed like a coach that had become increasingly withdrawn.
Now the man who built this program up will try to rebuild some of the foundation he laid in his 13 years at the helm.
Life is as eerily cyclical as memories are short, so maybe this is the only way it was supposed to go.
We probably won’t see flashes of the Dantonio of old in his “advisory” role, but he may simply provide a voice of reason in a yet another trying time for MSU’s administration and athletics.
I can’t help to feel a bit relieved, even if Dantonio is to provide moral support to players, many of which he recruited to MSU, in a potential double-digit loss at home during his Rose Bowl reunion celebration.
Obviously the Spartan community is going to try to spin this positively, but it doesn’t feel that difficult.
Not to mention, a large number of Dantonio recruits or players he coached in 2019 are still contributing valuably, most notably starting quarterback Noah Kim.
Now, MSU is hoping to channel something from Dantonio himself once more.
When he opened his Rose Bowl postgame interview with the term “Completion,” Dantonio sounded like an oracle, but even he didn’t see this coming in 2023.
Ironically enough, at Tucker’s introductory presser, head men's basketball coach Tom Izzo expressed his aspirations for MSU’s new hire.
“I got married here. I've had my kids here. I'm going to get buried here,” Izzo said. "Hopefully you're going to follow in my footsteps."
It doesn’t seem like that will be the case.
But before things went awry, the man that did, and maybe still does, want to die trying to keep MSU afloat has an opportunity to complete another circle.
Maybe if just to try to complete a small one left unfinished.
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