Michigan State Football: What’d be considered successful 2021 season?

Mel Tucker was given the short end of the stick in 2020. He was hired by Michigan State after National Signing Day with zero commits in his 2021 class. He was also hit with a dead period in recruiting about a month after he was hired thanks to the pandemic and never got to recruit in person for his 2021 class.

And then the 2020 season got pushed back and he was forced to try and get to know his players in a condensed, remote offseason. He was also given a rough-looking roster after years of average recruiting classes by Mark Dantonio.

Tucker took what he was given and ran with it.

The newly-appointed Spartan coach went 2-5 in his first season with Michigan State, beating a couple of ranked teams along the way. He took down rival Michigan and brought Paul Bunyan home despite being four-touchdown underdogs on the road and then beat Northwestern in shocking fashion at Spartan Stadium.

Two wins in seven games didn’t seem like a success, but given that both were against ranked opponents and Michigan State added some juice in the form of top-tier transfers this offseason, year one of the Tucker era came out positive overall.

But what would be considered a “successful” second season under Tucker?

How many wins would MSU need for 2021 to be considered a success?

Number of wins Michigan State football needs for “successful” season

It’s tough to determine what “successful” would be after a COVID-19 affected season in which Tucker really didn’t get the whole first-year experience, so we’ll call that “year zero” for the sake of this post.

A 2-5 record wasn’t great, but with the talent he had on the roster, it was just about expected. A loss to Rutgers and a blowout at Iowa were not expected, but those are things that he can learn from as a coach in his first full offseason. He can look back at what worked in somewhat of an experimental season and build on it.

Tucker knows how to beat ranked teams clearly so it wouldn’t shock me if he pulled off the upset on any teams like Miami, Northwestern, Indiana, Michigan, or Penn State.

But with the roster’s talent basically being flipped in one offseason, I would say that expectations have risen quite a bit and there’s excitement surrounding the program.

For me to call 2021 a “success”, I would say that Michigan State would need to go 6-6 at the very least. Make a bowl game and beat a Power Five (more than likely) team and finish with seven wins and I’d call that a success. A 5-7 or 4-8 record would be tough, and somewhat disappointing, but wouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

If Michigan State wins six or seven regular-season games, we can call it a success.