Niyo: With expectations tempered, Tucker, Spartans still in 'prove-it mode' heading into year 4

Indianapolis — When it comes to the expectations game, Mel Tucker’s tenure at Michigan State has been quite the thrill ride.
And as Tucker pointed out Wednesday, in a rare moment of candor at the Big Ten football media days, that really was the case even before he’d accepted the “challenge” of succeeding Mark Dantonio as the Spartans’ head coach some 3½ years ago.
Dantonio, the winningest coach in school history, led the football program to new heights with a pair of Big Ten titles, a College Football Playoff berth and a Pasadena triumph among the 12 bowl trips in his 13 seasons at the helm. But things were sliding downhill those last few years, and when Tucker arrived following Dantonio’s abrupt retirement — and the harried and hurried coaching search that followed — it was not without some reservations.
“We came in the door playing catch-up,” Tucker said Wednesday, during a wide-ranging 45-minute session with reporters inside Lucas Oil Stadium. “When this opportunity came up, I had several people tell me, ‘Do not take that job. You go into the conference eighth or ninth walking in the door, and you have no facilities.’”
Tucker did take the job, of course, and the money that came with it. And the money kept coming as he led the Spartans to a surprising 11-2 finish in his second season in East Lansing, where Tucker is now one of the college game's highest-paid coaches, and a $79 million renovation of the football facilities is nearing completion.
All of which leads to the obvious question that’s swirling around Tucker and his program with the start of fall camp looming next week: What should we expect?
Last year, Tucker stepped to the podium in Indianapolis and talked about his program still being in “prove-it mode” coming off that 2021 success. Then the Spartans stumbled out of the gate, losing four straight games — all by double digits — well before the leaves turned in mid-Michigan. Some key injuries decimated a roster that wasn’t particularly deep, and then an embarrassing postgame scene at Michigan added insult to the injuries with eight players earning suspensions, including three defensive starters.
Michigan State went on to finish with a 5-7 record, missing out on a bowl game after coughing up a 17-point lead against Indiana and getting thumped by Penn State in the season finale. And whether or not you choose to view that as a “fluke year,” as fifth-year senior guard J.D. Duplain put it Wednesday, Tucker doesn’t really care.
“What I prefer to do is look at last year’s team as the team that’s gonna lay the foundation for the program,” he said. “Because I think oftentimes you have to get kicked in the face before you can be great. We have a chip on our shoulder. No one was happy with how the season unfolded. It was very disappointing. And so we’re just hungry.
“There’s no sense of entitlement in our building. And I said it two years ago: We went 11-2, but I said, ‘We haven’t really done anything.’ We didn’t win a championship. We didn’t win ‘em all. It was a step in the right direction but we hadn’t arrived. We feel the same way now.”
Only this time, perhaps, they’ve got a better perspective. That’s the hope, anyway, as Duplain and his teammates talk about “getting back to where we were in 2021," and a fan base waits and wonders if that's possible. The Vegas oddsmakers list the over/under on Michigan State's season at 51/2 wins right now, and the Big Ten preseason media poll ranked them fifth in the Big Ten East, ahead of only Rutgers and Indiana.
That's hardly surprising the way last season unraveled. And Michigan State’s offseason wasn’t without drama, either. After Tucker made it clear the starting quarterback job was up for grabs, despite having a two-year returning starter and team captain in Payton Thorne, things got even murkier for the Spartans.
Thorne entered the transfer portal and quickly landed at Auburn, while Michigan State’s leading receiver, Keon Coleman, finally bolted for Florida State. Tucker insists neither move was a surprise, if only because he knows that’s the “treacherous” landscape coaches are faced with these days.
“That was probably the first time that Michigan State and our fans have really experienced the portal in that way, like, ‘Wow! What happened? What’s going on?’” Tucker said. “But how do these other schools feel? We’ve gotten good players out of the portal, too. I mean, that’s college football. Guys are coming and going and they’re doing what’s best for them. All you can do is wish them the best. Because it works both ways.”
It did again this offseason, with nearly 20 incoming transfers replacing a similar outgoing number in East Lansing. And while Duplain wished both Thorne and Coleman well Wednesday, he also made it clear those who stayed already have moved on.
“When we came back, we didn’t bat an eye,” he said. “I mean, nothing really changed. We're still Michigan State. Our team is bigger than two players.”
And, he added, “We can win with what we have.”
What they appear to have is more depth, for starters. Tucker said Wednesday this is “no doubt the most talent that we've had top to bottom on our roster” in his time at Michigan State. And that’s most notable in the defensive front seven, where a handful of transfers — Tunmise Adeleye (Texas A&M), Jalen Sami (Colorado), Jarrett Jackson (Florida State) and Dre Butler (Liberty) and Ken Talley (Penn State) — and a group of four-star freshman recruits should help fortify a defense that ranked 101st nationally against the run, 124th in pass efficiency and 114th in third-down conversions in 2022.
Still, arguably the biggest question heading into camp is at quarterback, where Noah Kim, a redshirt junior who was Thorne’s primary backup last season, appears to have the inside track on the No. 1 job. Tucker praised Kim’s experience and athletic tools Wednesday, but insisted it’s still a three-horse race along with redshirt freshman Katin Houser and freshman Sam Leavitt.
“It’s a healthy competition, and we’re gonna play the best player,” Tucker said. “We don’t know who that is at this point.”
Nor is he ready to say what the Spartans really are as a program just yet. And when asked Wednesday where he felt things stood in that game of catch-up he’s been playing since he arrived just ahead of the pandemic in 2020, he smartly took a pass.
“When you’re winning the games you’re supposed to win, and competing and winning games against the best teams in the conference, and you can do that on a consistent basis, then at that point you can say (it),” Tucker replied.
And when I asked him how close he felt the Spartans were on that timeline, he just smiled and answered, “We’ll see. Ask me in about a year.”