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8/14/20 6:00 AM
First-year Michigan State
coach Mel Tucker oversees practice on Aug. 7, 2020.Photo courtesy of Michigan
State athletics
By Matt
Wenzel | mwenzel2@mlive.com
Mel Tucker was hired for a job that came
with plenty of existing challenges.
In the six months that have passed, they
have increased in ways he couldn’t have imagined.
The first-year Michigan State football coach’s progress has been
continually thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic that resulted in the Big Ten on
Tuesday canceling all fall sports with the possibility of playing in the spring.
“With all of that said, I think
that Mel has done an absolutely extraordinary job,” Michigan State athletic
director Bill Beekman said during a Zoom call with reporters on Thursday. “I
couldn’t be more proud of the work that he’s been able to accomplish under
what, by any definition, are just the most challenging of circumstances.
“From how he’s worked with the players to help them learn the playbook,
again using remote technology, and with all of them at the time in their homes,
to really everything allowable under NCAA rules. … He’s done a great job with our donor base, having
conversations like this with major donors and with alumni around the country.”
Mark Dantonio abruptly retired on Feb. 4 after 13 seasons coaching
Michigan State and Tucker was hired eight days later after his first season as
a head coach at Colorado. He finalized his assistant coaching staff before the
end of the month and was ready to tackle the next challenges for a team that
was coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons.
Michigan State needed to replace half its starters on offense and
defense and install new schemes under a new head coach and new coordinators on
offense, defense and special teams. Just as they were about to start doing so,
the rug was pulled out from under them. Spring practice was canceled on March
13 – four days before it was scheduled to begin – and players and coaches were
sent home.
There wasn’t a way to actually replace losing 15 spring practices but
Tucker and his staff used videoconferences to install schemes and an app to
quiz players on their ability to understand them. Players returned to campus in
June for COVID-19 testing ahead of voluntary workouts and transitioned into an
NCAA-approved extended summer schedule on July 13. Positive COVID-19 results
led to the entire team being put in quarantine for two weeks before resuming
workouts on Aug. 5. Fall camp practice started two days later and just four
days after that the season was scrapped.
“Is it challenging? Absolutely,” Beekman said. “Do other coaches have an
advantage having a known playbook that they’ve worked on with their students
for years? Probably. Some of our schools in the Big Ten had as many as 10 days
of spring practice and we didn’t have any. That’s another hurdle. But at every
step of the way Mel’s plan is to overcome and make no excuses and succeed on
the field of play.”
The pandemic also resulted in four Michigan State players publicly
opting out of the season in senior starting defensive end Jacub Panasiuk,
senior starting right tackle Jordan Reid, redshirt freshman linebacker Marcel
Lewis and true freshman offensive lineman Justin Stevens. Those decisions were
announced before the fall season was scrapped.
Beekman is optimistic about the potential of playing a spring season,
although there are plenty of complications associated with doing so. Meanwhile,
the team continues to have organized workouts in small groups with strength and
conditioning staff members.
Off the field, Tucker’s ability to recruit has been hampered. He was
able to bring some recruits to campus in mid-March before the NCAA implemented
a recruiting dead period that has been continually extended and now lasts
through at least Sept. 30. With a ban on in-person recruiting, Tucker and his
staff have been limited to communicating electronically with prospects.
“I can’t say enough about how,
under the most daunting of circumstances, he just sort of picks up his lunch
pail and goes to work and conquers the next task,” Beekman said of Tucker. “And
from my perspective that’s, not to get too schmaltzy on you, that’s exactly the
Spartan, can-do, blue collar, roll up your sleeves attitude that we’re looking
for and that I think so many of our coaches and our student-athletes exhibit.”
