Michigan State Football: 3 ways Mel Tucker can win fans over in year one

2. Land a top 35 recruiting class

While it might not seem like a huge victory for the program, if Mel Tucker can reel in a top 35 recruiting class, that would already put him ahead of Mark Dantonio’s 2020 group and in the same realm at the 2019 class. If he can reel in a top 35 class considering the terrible situation he inherited, that’d be huge.

Rival fans have mocked the “elite recruiter” tag that was placed on Tucker when he was hired by the Spartans and it’s because it took him about six months to land his first composite four-star recruit. And that’s not really fair.

Tucker took over after National Signing Day and had three weeks to recruit in person before the pandemic hit. He inherited a class with zero (!) commitments and still managed to pick up 10 in about a month at the end of spring and that was with no visits.

Picking up a commitment from four-star guard Geno VanDeMark and trending with four-star running back Audric Estime is just the start and if he can build on that momentum and finish with a class that ranks somewhere in the 30-35 range, he’ll get all the praise.

All he’ll have to do is build on that in 2022.