Around the Big Ten

[lineygoblue]

He's from the Tressel/Dantonio coaching tree, which seems to be fairly important to MSU these days. His connection to Saban and Jawja probably didn't hurt either.

The added money for assistants and S&C will help him out as well, although I don't understand why they didn't do this for Dantonio.

He's being thrust into a tough situation. Right now, MSU is no better than 4th in the BTE, and they're in danger of falling further behind, rather than making a major jump forward. He's got to pull off some big moves in recruiting to get a pipeline going, or he's going to have a short tenure.

[froot loops]

I'm not sure Dantonio pushed for it, he was loathe to get rid of any assistants. The Blackwell hire was the only true hire that had some ambition to it and it blew up in their faces. It allegedly tore up the locker room and created a messy situation with the lawsuit and poisoned the well for state of Michigan players. It appeared after that, the recruiting retreated into a shell.

The Fickell situation was bucket of cold water reality was applied to the zombies in the administration. They have been trying to get by on the cheap for a long time, Dantonio's success masked that to a certain extent.

If Tucker has half the enthusiasm for recruiting it is being reported than it will be a step up. The situation of the last 4 or 5 years it was kind of known that a lot of the assistants didn't recruit.

[WingsFan]

Not a bad hire considering the situation, doubles his pay. Colorado is not happy or the Pac 12 people, but money talks. He can recruit great, see what happens in 2-3 years.

[froot loops]

I had a feeling this was the case. Saban has been the unofficial advisor of MSU for a long time.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I know one thing for sure watching the M coaching hiring debacle before Hackett came in, was given complete authority to vet and hire Harbaugh, and brought him aboard, there's a network of influential BOT/or whatever, board members, coaches and ADs that are players throughout the world of CFB.

They have an impact when they need to be leaned on to make something work ..... it does matter who needs help. For example, you're not likely to find these guys who are players within a conference helping a program that they are competing with but outside of conference, you bet.

So having Saban involved in making shit happen at MSU is no surprise. These guys are a tight community of mostly millionaires who enjoy being movers and groovers behind the scenes.

[AlabamAlum]

[froot loops]

It is probably semantics, Saban and Izzo talk all the time. Until Mel Tucker's name surfaced last week it was not a name anybody talked about as a future MSU coach. I can list off 10 names that have always been bandied about and that wasn't one of them. Someone had to come up with the name. Saban has always been behind the scenes advising because him and Izzo are tight. The one thing we do know is he likes MSU far better than Alabama.

[AlabamAlum]

Yours is the greatest pain.

[froot loops]

Ha!

[AlabamAlum]

.

[Dr. Strangelove]

What...does...God need...with a starship??

[froot loops]

I'm pretty sure I missed whatever trek movie that was, the reference escapes me.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. And the most skippable movie in the entire series. Directed by Shatner himself, natch

[AlabamAlum]

[froot loops]

I like the whale movie, it is one of.my favorites.