Michigan State Football: Quick thoughts on new 2020 schedule release

Michigan State football finally knows its official 2020 schedule and the conference-only slate won’t be easy. What do we think of the new schedule?

The long-awaited 2020 schedule release finally took place on Wednesday afternoon after waiting for weeks after the Big Ten decided on a conference-only slate.

Michigan State doesn’t have an easy slate and that’s going to be tough on a first-year head coach like Mel Tucker who hasn’t had much time to meet with his team before or after the quarantine. In fact, he was hired in mid-February after National Signing Day and his team was forced to quarantine again in late-July after multiple players and staff members tested positive for COVID-19.

Now that things are ramping up for the Spartans in terms of on-field action in the coming weeks, season or no season, they now get to prepare for a legitimate 2020 opener.

The entire schedule was shuffled around to make room for 10 conference opponents and let’s just say things won’t be pretty early on for the green and white.

Minnesota goes from a mid-season foe to the opener on Sept. 5. That’s quite a welcoming for Tucker as the Golden Gophers finished the 2020 season with an 11-2 record and then the Spartans will get a break in Week 2 against Maryland. Northwestern will then be up next followed by an absolute gauntlet at Penn State, at Michigan and against Ohio State.

Rutgers follows up that tough stretch and then a game at Iowa, at home against Indiana and finishing up at Nebraska.

Some quick thoughts on this schedule:

• Michigan State doesn’t legitimately have two easy games in a row. Maryland and Northwestern may be the closest to that description.
• The Sept. 26-Oct. 17 slate is an absolute torture chamber and could get as ugly as the 2019 games against Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State.
• The matchup with Michigan is being flipped from a home to a road game and that isn’t the worst thing because, well, without fans, this won’t be much different than playing in an empty Spartan Stadium.
• No fans will make every road matchup winnable.
• Big Ten commish Kevin Warren said that a season is not guaranteed despite a schedule release. The chances of a season happening seem slim.

Michigan State will have a rough first year under Tucker with plenty of new pieces in the starting lineup, but this would be the perfect season to have a rebuild.