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Michigan State Football: Mel Tucker has potential to be best coach in the Big Ten

By Gavin Kozlo

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - JULY 23: Mel Tucker, head coach of the Michigan State Spartans speaks during the Big Ten Football Media Days at Lucas Oil Stadium on July 23, 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
INDIANAPOLIS, IN - JULY 23: Mel Tucker, head coach of the Michigan State Spartans speaks during the Big Ten Football Media Days at Lucas Oil Stadium on July 23, 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images) /
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ATLANTA, GEORGIA – DECEMBER 30: Head Coach Mel Tucker of the Michigan State Spartans points during warm ups before the game against the Pittsburgh Panthers in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 30, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Adam Hagy/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GEORGIA – DECEMBER 30: Head Coach Mel Tucker of the Michigan State Spartans points during warm ups before the game against the Pittsburgh Panthers in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 30, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Adam Hagy/Getty Images) /

Mel brought a new style of recruiting to the Big Ten

The recruiting class was not great for the Spartans but as stated, Mel Tucker knew he had to find more pieces if he wanted to win in 2021 and he used the transfer portal heavily and it worked out a lot to his advantage. He ended up getting a lot of key players to contribute to the Spartans’ success.

Just to name a few, he landed Jarrett Horst, Maliq Carr, Ronald Williams, Quavaris Crouch, and one of the best Spartans players to do it, Kenneth Walker III. What he was able to do in the portal was just amazing and he has continued to do this same thing with the 2022 class. Though he has a great class ranked No. 22 in the nation, he still has been using the portal a ton, adding great talent.

This is something you dont see from Big Ten schools using the portal a lot because a lot view it as “unwanted goods” but in the end, you can find some great talent in the portal that just was not used properly — Walker was a prime example of that.

Secondly, Tucker is not building your typical Big Ten roster. With Coach Tucker, he’s trying to build a more SEC-style defense mainly because of where he has been before coming to Michigan State. He was working with Nick Saban at Alabama and saw how much success they had then moved on to Georiga and saw they also had more success.

Now, I’m not saying Tucker is gonna have recruiting classes like either of those schools because that is just a ridiculous ask. But he is using a more SEC blueprint to build his roster.

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