Mel Tucker contract: Michigan State takes risk overpaying its coach hoping to raise program's prominence

 

If Tucker's as good as the Spartans believe him to be, championships should soon follow

By Dennis Dodd

 

Nov 26, 2021 at 11:14 pm ET5 min read

Getty Images

Mel Tucker is overpaid. The man himself has to admit that. Before completing his third season as a head coach -- his second at Michigan State -- Tucker is now the game's second-highest paid coach.

Nick Saban is No. 1, and there are those who will suggest the only similarities between the two are their contracts and the fact that Tucker once worked for the great Alabama coach. Now, they can buy their own Mercedes dealerships. Wait, Saban already co-owns six of them, the same number of championships he has won at Alabama.

That's one indicator Tucker has some catching up to do, you know, on the field where these big contracts are supposedly earned. In case you haven't noticed in the coaching profession, salary frequently outstrips accomplishment.

The reaction to Tucker's contract in the college athletics' community is somewhere between floored and stunned. Tucker will collect $95 million from Michigan State over the next 10 years.

Good for him, but at least Bobby Bowden had won a national championship when he became the first $1 million dollar coach in 1995. So had Steve Spurrier when he became the first $2 million coach a year later.

Tucker is 16-14 as a head coach in his career. Just 21 months ago, he was leaving Colorado after one season in which he went 5-7. His biggest accomplishment in Spartyland is being the first Michigan State coach to go 2-0 against Michigan right out of the box while having his program competing for a Big Ten title and College Football Playoff berth into November.

He signed his extension Wednesday on the back of losing two of his last three games, at Purdue by 11 (MSU entered as a favorite) and at Ohio State by ... 49.

For a while, Tucker's running back, Kenneth Walker III, was the Heisman Trophy favorite. Walker should win the Doak Walker Award (best running back).

His coach can probably afford a really fancy note card congratulating him.

We can make jokes about the outlandish salaries of coaches, but this one is outlandish-ish. With the contract, the boosters who funded it are telling the world this endeavor is beyond winning championships. This is about becoming Michigan. No, Ohio State. No, this is about becoming Alabama.

For Michigan State, such is the price of (attempting) greatness. Tucker is qualified. The man has a lengthy resume including NFL experience, Big Ten chops and serving as a defensive coordinator under both Saban and Kirby Smart.

The Michigan State turnaround this season has been remarkable.

But is he a $95 million coach? We'll find out.

This extension whirlwind is also our American marketplace at work. The demand for good coaches is outstripping supply. Thus, you see inflation. There have been five coaches handed 10-year deals this year, three in the last three weeks -- Tucker, UTSA's Jeff Traylor and Penn State's James Franklin.

"Scarcity of elite coaches for those in the upper echelon," one Power Five athletic director explained as the reason for these deals. "Therefore, if you have a guy you believe in, lock him up. Otherwise, doing a search in this market is a lose-lose situation."

In other words, all the coaching studs are taken to the point the likes of Dave Aranda (less than two years' head coaching experience) is a hot name at both LSU and USC. Nothing against Aranda, who looks like the next coaching superstar, but not so quietly what used to be a two-year extension has become a 10-year extension.

"Schools are willing to do longer-term contracts if they feel they have the right head coach in place," Liberty AD Ian McCaw said. "Traditionally, they have been four- and five-year contracts. Now, you're seeing seven-, eight-, even 10-year contracts."

McCaw this week extended Hugh Freeze two years to 2028 but at an average of more than $4 million per year. That would be at or near the highest annual salary for a non-Power Five coach.

Is that fiscally responsible, or is it none of our business?

Saban is one of the few coaches in the country who actually earns his monster dollars. His success has contributed to enrollment increases, campus facility upgrades and an improved academic profile for Alabama.

Iowa's Kirk Ferentz got a $500,000 bonus for winning his eighth game. There are those who have pointed out Franklin has gone 11-9 in last two years and has one Big Ten title in eight seasons. Now he's earning $7.5 million per year with an additional $1 million in a life insurance loan.

Those observations are fair. It's also fair to say the Land Grant Trophy that goes to the winner of Saturday's Michigan State vs. Penn State game, should be sponsored by Rocket Mortgage. Both athletic departments could be banking their futures on combined 20-year contracts worth $170 million.

We should pause here and salute the fact Tucker became the highest-paid Black coach, ever, in American sports. He passes Stanford coach David Shaw.

In the negotiating trenches, super agent Neil Cornrich worked his magic. He clearly knew the market. There wasn't even an opening at Michigan State, and he blew the lid off. Tucker's name had come up at LSU. He would have interviewed at some point, sources tell CBS Sports. Maybe that's all Cornrich needed as leverage: the idea of an interview. 

A lot of coaches are overpaid, almost every single head coach at the Power Five level. When you make (much) more than the president of the school, that raises questions about an institution's priorities. But we passed that mile marker about 50 years ago. No one blinked then. Why start now?

Maybe it's because Tucker is more overpaid than most.

Again, he would probably admit that, but as Bill Parcells once said, you're worth what someone will pay you.

Tucker is worth a lot. Only the number of zeroes quantify whatever outrage exists. Critics were jumping down Knute Rockne's throat when he made $75,000 at the time of his death in 1931. In today's money, that would equal $1.2 million.   

Tucker is making eight times that. How times have changed -- or stayed the same.

Legend has it that Bear Bryant left Kentucky for Alabama because he got a cigarette lighter one year while Kentucky basketball coach Adolph Rupp got a Cadillac for his accomplishments.

What a club Tucker has joined. Now comes the hard part: winning.

Those monied boosters who are funding this contract will expect championships. They won't be alone. Michigan State can no longer hide as Little Brother in quaint East Lansing, Michigan. That kind of money trumpets swagger and excellence.

First, you've got to win championships -- beating Michigan not only next year but every year. That's a good start. Becoming Alabama is the ultimate expectation.

For now, Walker can look forward to that really impressive note card. 

Michigan State coach Mel Tucker agrees to 10-year, $95 million contract as Spartans eye 10 wins

November 24, 2021

Michigan State football coach Mel Tucker on Wednesday agreed to a 10-year deal worth $95 million to remain with the Spartans, the school announced.

The new contract, which made headlines around college football last week leading up to the Spartans' game at Ohio State, makes Tucker one of the highest-paid coaches in the sport and comes four days before Michigan State closes its regular season.

Tucker can thank a group of Spartans donors -- Mat Ishbia, Steve St. Andre, Brian Mosallam and Jason Strayhorn -- who gathered to help complete the deal this month, as Michigan State takes a turn toward recruiting.

"Every day I wake up feeling humbled to be the Head Football Coach at Michigan State," Tucker wrote in a letter posted on his official Twitter account. "It is my privilege to work alongside our student athletes, coaches and staff who embody our culture of hard work, discipline, and excellence -- on and off the field."

 

Tucker's contract is fully guaranteed. His buyout to leave Michigan State remains unchanged from his original contract: $2.5 million with annual decreases by $500,000.

The news comes five days after the Spartans dropped a 56-7 decision at Ohio State, Tucker's second loss in his past three games after Michigan State opened the year at 8-0. The surprising start landed the Spartans (9-2) in the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings before ultimately dropping.

"This is a process to build a championship-winning program," he wrote in his social media post. "A process that drives us to be better. A process that demands relentless soul and grit. A process that requires the support from Spartans across the globe. I am honored to be a part of the Spartan process today, and for years to come."

Clearly, the Big Ten school believes in that process.

"Mel Tucker has been an outstanding addition to our Spartan Athletic program," university president Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., said in the school's announcement. "In less than two years, his leadership has already resulted in a program competing for top honors, and I'm impressed by his intensity and drive. Spartan fans around the country are enjoying the success of this year's football program and we look forward to many more successful seasons, competing at the highest levels under Coach Tucker."

According to the school's news release, Tucker's contract includes "non-performance related compensation of $9.5 million per year, including a $5.9 million base, $3.2 million in supplemental compensation for media and personal appearances, plus a $400,000 contingent annual bonus. The contract expires on January 15, 2032."

Only Alabama's Nick Saban, one of Tucker's mentors, who makes $9,753,221 a year, is paid more on an annual basis, according to the USA Today coaches' salaries database. And Tucker's 10-year deal puts him in select company with two other coaches on the same term: Clemson's Dabo Swinney and Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher. Swinney's contract is worth $92 million and Fisher's deal will pay him more than $9 million a year, starting in 2022.

Last week, Tucker said Michigan State is a destination job and that he never intended to "just pass through" on his way to another program.

Speaking on The Draymond Green Show with Green, a former basketball star at Michigan State now with the Golden State Warriors, Tucker made his first comments last week since the Detroit Free Press reported the two sides were working on the eventual final terms.

"I made it clear in my initial press conferences that I thought Michigan State was a destination job and not a stepping stone," Tucker, in his second season in East Lansing, Michigan, told Green, who played for the Spartans from 2008 to 2012. "It was never my intention to come here and just pass through. I believe that we're building something special here. I have tremendous support here to do that, and we're on the right track."

Tucker, 49, mentioned his roots in the Big Ten as a former Wisconsin player and a native of Cleveland who started his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Michigan State for then-coach Nick Saban. He also spent 2001 to 2004 as a defensive assistant at Ohio State.

Tucker's original deal was scheduled to run through the 2024 season, carrying a $5.56 million annual salary. In February 2020, he was hired after only one season at Colorado to replace longtime Spartans coach Mark Dantonio.

Tucker had been mentioned as a potential candidate for the coaching vacancy at LSU, which announced Oct. 17 that coach Ed Orgeron would not return in 2022.

The Spartans will close the regular season on Saturday, seeking their 10th win, with a home game against Penn State (7-4).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The surest hands in the league

 

The surest hands in the league