Michigan State Football: Harlon Barnett’s return welcomed by everyone

Michigan State football’s coaching staff continues to take shape as it has grown by three, officially, over the past two days.

You won’t find a disapproving current or former player over the news of Harlon Barnett’s return to East Lansing. What makes his venture back home even more impressive is that he’s not even taking a prominent position — at least not yet.

Mel Tucker has been piecing together his staff and he added one of the best options on the market and a great defensive mind in Barnett as the defensive backs coach.

Just how impressive is this move? He took a guy who had spent the last few seasons as Michigan State’s co-defensive coordinator and Florida State’s defensive coordinator and hired him as a defensive backs coach. He took a step back in roles and he is a guy who many former players wanted as the next head coach before Tucker was hired. This is a major win.

Barnett was the defensive backs coach for Mark Dantonio during the “No Fly Zone” era in one of the most successful periods in terms of defensive prowess in MSU history from 2007-14. And then he became co-defensive coordinator when Pat Narduzzi left from 2015-17 and then took the Florida State defensive coordinator job.

This now becomes another home-run hire for the defense which has added Ron Burton, Mike Tressel and now Barnett to the staff (or I should say retained two and brought one back).

The entire staff currently looks like this:

OC/QB: Jay Johnson
WR: Courtney Hawkins
OL: Chris Kapilovic
DL: Ron Burton
Defense (unassigned): Mike Tressel
DB: Harlon Barnett

This is a fantastic start to the staff and there’s word that Wisconsin passing game coordinator and receivers coach Ted Gilmore could be joining the staff in some offensive capacity.

Tucker has been doing a great job and the players are all buying in.