Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State football and Mel Tucker from Big Ten media days

1. Spartans strike the right tone – humbled, hungry and living in reality
INDIANAPOLIS – There was no obvious hyperbole or bravado, but also no backing down from Mel Tucker and the three Michigan State players he brought with him to Wednesday’s Big Ten Media Day.
The missteps of last season provided plenty of humility and hunger and also a sense that MSU’s program under Tucker might have moved into a new phase — beyond the whirlwind volatility of the first three seasons. Tucker and receiver Tre Mosley, offensive lineman J.D. Duplain and linebacker Cal Haladay came across Wednesday as grounded in reality.
“Often times you have to get kicked in the face before you can be great,” Tucker said Wednesday afternoon of his program, calling last year’s 5-7 team “a foundation,” in part because of what it endured and learned.
“Like all humans, when you have success, I think you can get a little bit complacent,” Mosley added, “and I think that’s what happened to us a little bit last year, along with death by inches, letting small mistakes add up and eventually it catches up to you.”
MSU was banged up physically and over-hyped a year ago — by its own bluster and all of us who bought into it after the Kenneth Walker-led craze of 2021. The Spartans weren’t all smoke and mirrors and Walker two years ago, but the program was nowhere near as far along as that team.
Last season set everyone straight. What we see this season should give us a firm sense of what’s real and what isn’t — the program’s depth of talent, the recruiting of the last couple years (post-COVID), the acumen of Tucker and his staff.
This is a show-me season for MSU’s players and Tucker. Not yet “Show me you can beat Ohio State.” But show you can get the most out of what you have and that what you have is growing. Show signs that, in the not-too-distant future, this could be something special, sustainably so.
“It’s about winning football games,” Tucker said. “We don’t have a theme for this season. We don’t have any slogans. We’ve got to play to the best of our potential. We’ve got to get it out of our guys. Whatever we can do, whatever we’re capable of doing, we have to get it out of them on the field. We’ve got to coach through it and get it out of them.”
Tucker described this team as “no doubt the most talent we’ve had top to bottom on our roster.”
And a year after sounding as impatient as everyone, he sounded more like someone who’s been coaching for three decades and knows the deal.
“It does take some time to build depth through recruiting,” he said. “After the 2020 season, the COVID season, we didn’t have a player drafted (by the NFL). That’s the first time in 80 years that Michigan State didn’t have a player drafted. That’s at any position. That just goes to show you the state of depth and talent in the program and it takes some recruiting classes to get that done.
“We recruited well, especially the last two classes. Some of those young guys in the ’22 class, they were playing last year, so it was painful on-the-job training. They’re bigger, stronger, faster now and they have experience and they look different.”
MSU has added significantly to its defensive line, its offensive backfield and, Mosley said, the defensive secondary is the unit he’s most looking forward to seeing.
But there are also significant questions about this roster, beginning at quarterback (see below). This is very much a program still mid-build and, as Tucker put it, “playing catch-up.”
“When this opportunity came up, I had several, several people say, ‘Do not take that job,’ ” Tucker said. “They said you go in eighth or ninth (in the Big Ten) walking in the door.”
When do you know you've caught up?
“When you’re winning the games you’re supposed to win and you’re competing and winning games with the best teams in the conference and you can do that on a consistent basis.”
In a couple years, that’ll be a fair expectation. For now, winning the games they’re supposed to win and putting up a fight in the others is a reasonable ask — and would show the program is on the right path.
2. It’s an open QB competition, but if Noah Kim doesn’t start, I’ll be surprised
MSU’s August quarterback competition hasn’t happened yet, so if you’re looking for clues from Tucker and the Spartans about who’s in the lead, you’re asking a question they can’t answer.
We asked anyway on Wednesday. Just in case.
Here’s what Tucker said about the pending battle between junior Noah Kim, redshirt freshman Katin Houser and true freshman Sam Leavitt:
“Obviously, Noah has more experience. He’s been here longer,” Tucker said. “You saw when he went into games last year, he did make it look relatively easy versus the guys he was playing against. But it’s open. We’ll see how it goes. We just need someone to go in there and do what we ask them to do — lead, run the offense, take what the defense gives them, hit the check down or run it, or knock the beer out of someone’s hands in the stands, throw it away. Go on to the next play. Play complementary football and not try to do too much.”
In other words, the ticket to winning the starting job is less about being the top playmaker and more about being trusted to not make the dumb mistake.
Tucker said Leavitt will be part of the competition. That was promised to him during the recruiting process.
“He’ll have to execute on a consistent basis better than the other two guys,” Tucker said.
Seems unlikely, given that next Thursday’s practice will be his first real practice at MSU, a month before the opener.
I also think it’s unlikely that Houser starts the opener over Kim. Kim was ahead of Houser at the end of the spring. And, moreover, if it’s close, Kim deserves the chance. It’s also easier to replace the older guy with the younger backup than to bench a young starter if things go awry. Unless Houser is unquestionably better than Kim, I’d bet Kim is under center to start against Central Michigan on Sept. 1.
3. Tucker has a Dantonio moment when addressing U-M rivalry
Just as Mel Tucker’s extended media session began Wednesday afternoon, news broke that MSU’s Oct. 21 home date with Michigan will be a primetime game at Spartan Stadium, kicking off at 7:30 p.m.
So much for trying to sober up an increasingly ugly football rivalry.
Tucker’s reaction to the kickoff time:
“We’ll be there.”
When asked whether the rivalry needed to be reined in, he replied:
“How do you rein it in? I don’t know how you do that. There’s not a day that’s gone by that I haven’t heard something about that game. I mean every day of my life I hear about that game. So I don’t know how you rein that in. It just is what it is.”
And then, he had a good moment, a Mark Dantonio-like moment on the rivalry when asked about it’s importance and having it protected and played every year:
“That’s what’s great about college football (playing rivalries like that),” he said. “ … That’s why we coach, that’s why we play — to be in those games and ultimately win those games. Often times you’re judged by how you do in those games. I think it’s great. From the day I got here, I’m not shying away from the challenge of the rivalry. It’s the biggest game of the year for us. And it’s always going to be like that as long as I’m the coach here.”
Tucker is 2-1 against Michigan. And he’s right — he will be judged in part by that rivalry. Long before Dantonio won anything else, he flipped the script on the rivalry with Michigan. He was loved for it. The quickest way for Tucker to buy conditional love from MSU’s fan base is to keep winning his share against the Wolverines.
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch