Michigan State Football: Mel Tucker wants to bring a national title to East Lansing

Following Big Ten Media Days, there was palpable excitement surrounding the Michigan State football program thanks to head coach Mel Tucker.

The second-year head coach said all the right things and made it a point to say he doesn’t see this as a “year one” after the 2020 pandemic-shortened season. He rejected the idea of getting a mulligan for 2020 because of the unfortunate circumstances and that alone won some of the doubters over.

Tucker’s appearance at Big Ten Media Days was an absolute home run.

In fact, he earned some respect from Saturday Tradition which ranked him the No. 1 coach at Big Ten Media Days. He entered media days as the No. 11 coach according to the site and commanded the room and respect from everyone in attendance. He spoke with confidence and said things that have everyone believing he’ll right the ship in East Lansing.

Michigan State fans had to love what they saw from Tucker and there was one quote, in particular, that caught everyone’s attention.

Sure, every coach is going to say something like this, but when you listen to Tucker speak about the Michigan State position being his dream job since 1997, you believe it. This might be coachspeak, but you can tell Tucker truly believes that he can do just this in East Lansing.

And this also goes to show he plans to be at Michigan State for a while.

Another refreshing sign.

Michigan State football has “momentum” in every aspect

Tucker had some other exciting things to say such as he feels the momentum heading into year two in essentially every aspect of the program.

He also spoke about soaking in knowledge from Nick Saban, taking notes along the way, and practicing what his former boss preached. Having knowledge from the best mind in college football is only going to help him long-term and should pay off immediately in 2021.

The Spartans are gaining some ground and the excitement is back.