Michigan State Football: Mel Tucker bringing back much-needed energy, intensity

Something about the last two Michigan State football teams just seemed to be lacking and it may have been the energy and intensity.

Michigan State is back to work and it’s been a long time coming. Fans have been anxiously awaiting any sort of news out of camp and while the quarterback battle will dominate headlines, there’s one area that isn’t getting as much attention as it should be: increased energy and intensity.

According to Matt Charboneau of The Detroit News, first-year head coach Mel Tucker is bringing the energy back to practices even when they’re supposed to be just light walk-throughs.

Guys like Rocky Lombardi and Antjuan Simmons have been singing the praises of the new staff and said that the energy is at an all-time high so far. They’ve been thoroughly impressed with how energized and intense the new coaching staff is and that could be a nice change of pace from the perceived lax attitudes from the past couple of seasons.

"“It was supposed to be a little bit of a light practice but there was a high tempo,” junior quarterback Rocky Lombardi said. “Coach Tuck is not messing around now, man. He is getting us ready to go. He’s motivated, we’re motivated so it was a good practice. Everybody’s flying around and really excited to see what we got.”"

Simmons was on the same wavelength as Rocky, speaking highly of the energy and the coaching staff being everywhere all at once, saying and doing the right things to get the team motivated.

"“You can really feel the energy out there,” senior linebacker Antjuan Simmons said. “Everybody wants to be on film, being talked about. Whenever you look to your right or left there is a coach out there yelling with some type of excitement. He’s either yelling that somebody just made a play or he’s yelling at somebody for making a mistake, one of the two. But it’s definitely the excitement. The new voices, the new faces, just all of that combined. You don’t really know what to expect, but you know it’s gonna be exciting.”"

Those are your two leaders right there, at least for right now, and they’re gushing about the new staff’s approach and that might be telling about how far the old staff had fallen. It seemed like the old staff got into a rut and was never able to climb out which led to back-to-back seven-win seasons and Mark Dantonio’s sudden retirement.

In case you’re looking for another quote to get you excited about the new era of Spartan football:

"“He’s a 10, and probably plus some,” Simmons said, laughing when he was asked to rate Tucker’s intensity on Monday."

It seems like Michigan State is getting a good one in Tucker who is ready to bring the program back into the national spotlight. Intensity and energy are a good start.