Money talks, even after opportunity walks.
So if there’s a surprise in Michigan State’s head-spinning search for Mark Dantonio’s replacement this past week, it’s not that it circled back to land Colorado’s Mel Tucker late Tuesday, a few days after the 48-year-old Ohio native said he wasn't on board.
No, it’s that anyone would argue that turnabout isn’t fair play. This sort of deal-making is commonplace in big business, and business doesn’t get much bigger than college athletics these days.
Sure, it’s a bit awkward, with Tucker saying yes to Michigan State after at least pretending to say no to an offer than wasn’t even there, then spending the last couple of days doing radio interviews touting the program he was building at Colorado and even attending an event for donors in Denver.
But this wasn’t easy for Bill Beekman & Co., either, having to pay a price — in dollars and perception — after making it clear Tucker wasn’t the Spartans’ first choice.
But this is the cost of competition at the highest level in major-college football, and if nothing else, Michigan State’s final destination confirms what the last decade-plus under Dantonio proved: The Spartans do mean business.
They were bidding against themselves this time, after their No. 1 target Luke Fickell left them hanging — in mid-heir, if you will. And the fallout they endured after that misstep was largely justified. But so is the credit they’ll get for rallying quickly with a Plan B, returning to Tucker and making him an offer — more than one, it appears — that he couldn’t refuse.
Michigan State clearly was prepared to pay the going rate for a high-profile coach, something Big Ten schools clearly are more willing to do than their Pac-12 counterparts. In Tucker’s case, the package includes doubling his annual salary and also the all-important pool for his assistant coaches, according to The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman.
Tucker was scheduled to earn $2.675 million this season, and his buyout dropped from $5 million to $3 million in 2020. His staff salary pool was $3.2 million. By contrast, Dantonio was making $4.4 million plus bonuses with just under $5 million allocated for his assistants.
That’s no small step for the Spartans, and a giant leap for Tucker, whose lengthy resume includes just one year of head-coaching experience in college — Colorado went 5-7 last season — and a brief stint as an interim head coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Beyond that, though, Tucker checks most of the boxes Beekman initially outlined last week after Dantonio announced he was stepping down after 13 years at the helm. And even a few he didn't, not least of which is the fact Tucker is one of just 13 African-American head coaches among the 130 Football Bowl Subdivision schools.
Beekman said he wanted someone with character and integrity, and Tucker no doubt will have to answer for the way he left Colorado. (Already Wednesday, former Dallas Cowboys All-Pro Drew Pearson — whose grandson was part of the Buffaloes' 2020 recruiting class — was on social media calling Tucker a "con man.") Still, if you ask any of his peers, I’m sure they’d tell you the contract really says it all.
But Michigan State’s AD also said wanted “someone that knows the Big Ten” and “somebody that knows and understands Michigan State and our culture.” And Tucker certainly does, as a Cleveland native who played for Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin and then got his start in coaching under Nick Saban at Michigan State as a graduate assistant in 1997-98, working alongside Dantonio, among others.
In fact, Saban, who’d originally recruited Tucker out of high school when he was Toledo’s head coach, actually hired him three times — first at MSU, then at LSU and again five years ago at Alabama, where Tucker was part of a national championship team for the second time.
The previous title came in 2002 at Ohio State, where Tucker coached defensive backs on Jim Tressel’s staff — Dantonio was the defensive coordinator — and proved himself as an top-flight recruiter, helping reestablish the Buckeyes’ dominance in his own backyard in Cleveland.
Now he’ll be tasked with doing something similar at Michigan State, re-energizing the recruiting effort that had sagged along with the results on the field the past couple of years, both in Ohio and in Michigan. Tucker’s most recent recruiting class was Colorado’s highest-rated in a decade, and it ranked ahead of the Spartans’ as well.
A late start won’t give him much time to hit the ground running, and among the many unanswered questions now is how quickly — or effectively — Tucker can build out his new staff in East Lansing. (There are defensive coaches under contract, but Dantonio’s offensive coaches’ deals were set to expire next month.)
Tucker’s ties here should help ease the transition. The reaction from a fanbase that was beginning to fear the worst undoubtedly will as well. And so, too, will the money he has to spend. Because in a bottom-line business, that counts for more than a little. And for Michigan State at the moment, it matters a whole lot.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMikwFodHRwczovL3d3dy5kZXRyb2l0bmV3cy5jb20vc3Rvcnkvc3BvcnRzL2NvbHVtbmlzdHMvam9obi1uaXlvLzIwMjAvMDIvMTIvbml5by1taWNoaWdhbi1zdGF0ZS1zcGFydGFucy1wYXktcHJpY2UtZmluZC1pdHMtZm9vdGJhbGwtY29hY2gvNDczNTk1NzAwMi_SASpodHRwczovL2FtcC5kZXRyb2l0bmV3cy5jb20vYW1wLzQ3MzU5NTcwMDI?oc=5
2020-02-12 16:22:00Z
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