Mel Tucker disrespected by CBS Sports’ Big Ten coach rankings for 2022

Mel Tucker was one of the best coaches in college football last year, but CBS Sports believes he’s only the eighth-best in the Big Ten.

Mel Tucker has been a godsend for the Michigan State football program.

When it looked like the Spartans were trending in the wrong direction after a couple of mediocre seasons in 2018 and 2019 followed up by the sudden retirement of Mark Dantonio, Tucker was swiped from Colorado despite saying he wasn’t taking the job.

Tucker had a rough first year in 2020, but you have to take into account that he didn’t get to meet with his team much before the season because of the pandemic but he still managed to win a couple of ranked games, going 2-5.

In 2021, after improving from Dantonio’s previous recruiting class and hitting the portal hard, Tucker finished with an 11-2 record and a Peach Bowl victory. It was the program’s first New Year’s Six win since 2014 and first 11-plus win season since 2015. It was clear that Tucker had brought the energy and excitement back and he didn’t even have his own guys yet.

Clearly, this dude could coach.

How did Michigan State respond? Oh, just by giving him a massive extension which made him one of the highest-paid coaches in the country which was a great move because there were powerhouse programs (like LSU) looking to poach him.

Apparently turning a program around from mediocrity to a New Year’s Six and 11-win one in just two years isn’t enough to impress everyone, including Tom Fornelli of CBS Sports.

In fact, he released his Big Ten coach rankings ahead of the 2022 season on Wednesday, and Tucker was surprisingly disrespected. He was ranked No. 8.

Yes, Fornelli really believes that there are seven better Big Ten coaches than the man who flipped Michigan State back into a contender and is already recruiting better than Dantonio ever did.

Who’s ahead of him? Kirk Ferentz, Paul Chryst, James Franklin, Pat Fitzgerald, PJ Fleck, Jim Harbaugh, and Ryan Day. It’s hard to argue a couple of those, but there are 4-5 that you could argue Tucker is ahead of — notably Ferentz, Fitzgerald, and Fleck.

Tucker did jump from last year where I believe he was No. 13 out of 14 and now he’s up to No. 8, so let’s see him vault once again next year into that top-five range.