MSU thread (in the Lions Forum)

[NewOrleansLion]

I've been wanting to bring this thread back for a while. This is a good day to do it for all the wrong reasons. Does anyone know what in the H-E-DoubleHockeySticks is going on in the football program? I could see Thorne transferring if he didn't win the starting job, but Keon Coleman?

[edindetroit]

It's a beautiful thing

[NewOrleansLion]

It's a beautiful thing

There’s a mom joke teed up here, but I’m not wasting that kind of comedy gold on you.

[Cody_Russell]

Let the dust settle and see what this turns into a few weeks from now. Colorado just experienced a more extreme version of this as Deion is trying to change the losing culture.

Selfishly saying this. NIL sucks at times from a fan’s perspective. NOT the student athletes who get paid. Good for them. It’s more difficult to invest in players when they’re likely to transfer portal out of the program.

For example. I know the next time Purdue has a Rondale Moore, David Bell, or George Karlaftis… they will randomly jump in the transfer portal and go to a program like USC or Alabama.

Going full casual college sports fan is the way to go in the NIL era IMHO. There was a time when looking into recruiting classes was essential. Not anymore.

[chemiclord]

Meh. If you want guys to stay and not transfer, these schools should probably invest in giving them reason to stay rather than just do something like, oh I dunno, pay the head coach an extravagant sum.

The days of being able to hold a young man hostage for three years is over, and that is a good thing in every possible way.

[froot loops]

In this case, according to rumors I don't think Thorne was guaranteed to start and Auburn was offering a shot for him. I don't know about Keon Coleman but he's the type of talent that probably could score a huge endorsement deal somewhere else.

The Spartans have been able to retain players that previously went to the portal. I'm not sure if that possible here. Not good news for sure, I think the other two quarterbacks have a chance to be as good.as Thorne was. They have had some good recruiting classes the last few years, they need those to start producing. It seems like the last year took a lot of starch out of the program that looked to be ascending. We will see.

[NewOrleansLion]

Brantley (CB) removed his name from the portal. Sounds like Coleman is gone, though. That's a big loss.

[NewOrleansLion]

Good news: Akins and Hoggard are coming back. (Expected, but next year looks very promising.)

Bad news: Ivey’s going back to Purdue. We have no answer for that guy.

[Cody_Russell]

MSU and Purdue expected to battle it out for the top of the B10 next season. Bring it on. Everyone can’t play Purdue like FDU did, but I hope teams try. Make Purdue learn how to play against that style and type of team.

College basketball rankings: Zach Edey's return has Purdue No. 2 in Top 25 And 1 following NBA Draft deadline
https://www.cbssports.com/college-ba...-deadline/amp/

[NewOrleansLion]

Column in the Freep that sums up a lot of my issues with Tucker. Dude has a lot to prove this year:

”At a time when Michigan State football is obscured by a cloud of uncertainty, Mel Tucker has sowed even greater doubt by delivering mixed messages, presenting competing ideas and contradicting himself. It has become a bad habit for a coach in Year 4 of a regime that alarmingly still appears to be in draft mode with no defined trajectory.

Tucker’s interview with the Lansing State Journal’s Graham Couch further illustrated the vexing lack of continuity in his public comments and actions. In that conversation, the Spartans coach shared his thoughts on the factors preventing MSU from becoming one of the top programs in college football, pointing to internal deficiencies that have had a negative effect on his ability to acquire talent. He complained about the infrastructure around him and the inadequate investment in players’ name, image and likeness. Most took it as a not-too-subtle plea for more, more, more.

And yet?

“The commitment is here, the resources are here, the want-to, the leadership is here. Everything we need is here right now to get done what we need to get done.” Those were Tucker’s words on the day he was hired in February 2020.

It’s unclear if he ever believed they were true after it came to light in July that some people discouraged Tucker from accepting the MSU job when his predecessor, Mark Dantonio, abruptly retired. “You go into the conference eighth or ninth walking in the door,” Tucker remembered those skeptics telling him then. “You have no facilities.”

Tucker volunteered that anecdote at Big Ten media days this summer when explaining why his program is still a work in progress. Yet a few minutes before, he was rather emphatic when he said his goal this season is to “win every game on our schedule.” Should that also be the expectation for fans, considering Tucker claimed his current team has more talent from top to bottom than any other he has coached in East Lansing, including the one that won 11 times in 2021?

It’s hard to make that determination because Tucker continues to traffic in ambiguity as he has throughout a tenure riddled with inconsistency in both concept and execution.

This is a coach who came to East Lansing intent on transforming the Spartans into a “meat-and-potatoes” outfit devoted to playing a “tough, hard-nosed, physical” brand of football that, in his words, is “not pretty.” Yet he then turned around and sold high school prospects on extravagance and excess.

The contrasting imagery didn’t make much sense and caused people on the outside to wonder what defines Tucker’s program — the brawn, grit and “keep chopping” mantra he espouses or the glitz, flash and cool factor he tries to project. Frankly, none of it was evident last fall, when MSU was mired in a four-game losing streak and wobbling toward a 5-7 record. The Spartans lacked both style and substance. During that miserable period, when fan unrest peaked, Tucker acknowledged he didn’t expect “unconditional support from anyone, ever.”

So, why then, with the remnants of that bad season still visible, should he presume school donors will be eager to open their checkbooks again when the millions already raised for an upgraded football complex and Tucker’s gargantuan contract extensionhave yet to produce many positive returns?

This isn’t how the world works, as Tucker knows. In his line of work, it’s cutthroat and results-oriented with a “win now” mandate.

“As we’ve talked about, it's a production business,” Tucker said last October. “It's all about what have you done for me lately? What have you done for me today? Not last year or two years ago or five years ago.”

As he has reiterated time and again, MSU must constantly validate its worth. He calls it “prove-it mode,” and he told anybody listening his program is always in it.

But as of late, the Spartans haven’t shown much. Since Tucker led them to a euphoric victory over Michigan in October 2021, they are 8-9 and have suffered demoralizing defeats to Ohio State, Minnesota, Indiana, and yes, their in-state rival. The mojo has faded to the point that MSU is picked to finish fifth in its division and is now spinning its wheels along the recruiting trail as well. So far, the Spartans have assembled a 2024 class ranked 52nd in 247Sports’ index and slotted below 14 of the 18 teams in the expanded Big Ten set to take shape next year.

Tucker implied to Couch these struggles can be attributed to the MSU community’s delayed entry into the NIL space that often influences the college choices of elite prospects. But maybe they also stem from the Spartans’ failures on the field, the steady turnover at the top of Tucker’s recruiting department and an iffy track record sending players to the NFL.

To that last point, the only member of the defense drafted off any of Tucker’s MSU rosters is Ameer Speed, a transfer cornerback who earned his shot, in part, because he went back to his original school to conduct his tryout at Georgia’s pro day. In the face of these uncomfortable truths, Tucker has been quick to remind everyone of the shallow talent pool he inherited from Dantonio, which caused him and his staff to play “catch up,” as he put it.

But he still was charged with coaching and developing Dantonio’s signees, and many of them helped him achieve his best single-season record two years ago. To now highlight the lack of NIL financing as the primary reason the Spartans are treading water shifts the attention away from the other problems that have surfaced under his watch. Besides, Tucker once declared, “If you can't recruit at Michigan State, you probably can't recruit.” That signaled to everyone there were no excuses, which fell in line with the last of the five core values Tucker said were central to his program: Accountability.

After reading his comments in the LSJ, it seems Tucker isn’t adhering to that principle or his past statements. Instead, he is absolving himself of some responsibility and passing the buck, blaming MSU’s shortcomings on what he doesn’t have rather than acknowledging all that he has managed to squander. That, too, is becoming a bad habit.”

[wcfwtf]

Paid him too much, too soon
nut its ok, public universities are drowning in money

[NewOrleansLion]

They were too scared of losing him. That was a crazy commitment after one season with good results.

8 or 9 wins is a reasonable expectation for Michigan State, year in and year out. I know the schedule is about to change, but beat at least one of OSU, PSU, and M every year. Get to 10 or 11 wins every few years, and expect a stinker (6-6) once every 5 years.

Dantonio's 2013 - 2015 run was remarkable.

[edindetroit]

Dantonio's 2013 - 2015 run was remarkable.

2013?

[wcfwtf]

Was it the 2015 defense that was great?
If they played in National Championship with that D they had a chance.
too bad it didn’t happen☹️

[NewOrleansLion]

2013 was the year they beat Stanford in the Rose Bowl. That was Dantonio’s best team, and they would have had a legit shot in a 4-team playoff.