Harlon Barnett, Michigan State players pay the price for Mel Tucker's errors
Harlon Barnett didn't deserve this. Neither did Tre Mosley or J.D. Duplain.
But after Michigan State football was beaten 41-7 in humiliating fashion by No. 8 Washington, those three men had to stand up in front of the media and answer a lot of uncomfortable questions — some of which pertained to things they were partially responsible for, but many about things they had nothing to do with.
"You have challenges anytime you start something new that you haven't done," Barnett said at his first postgame press conference as MSU's acting head coach. "There were things that I've just never have had to deal with...There were a lot of different things that came about.
"I've got some things on my mind that I want to do, as far as me coaching, and try to get us normalized again. Whereas, this past week, we were off-kilter a little bit."
There's no questioning who is responsible for the Spartans being "off-kilter". It's the same person who deserved to stand at the podium and take the heat for the debacle that played out in East Lansing tonight — suspended head coach Mel Tucker.
In a week in which a several immoral and uncomfortable facts came to light, perhaps the biggest tragedy and most unjust thing about Saturday night's beatdown was that Tucker didn't have to stand up there and own a single thing regarding his mistakes and shortcomings — as a man, as a decision-maker and as a college football coach.
Forget about what you believe regarding the investigation into Tucker's alleged sexual harassment of sexual misconduct prevention advocate Brenda Tracy. Forget the dirty, disgusting details of what Tucker admitted to doing on that phone call on April 22, 2022. Forget certain inconsistencies in what Tucker told a third-party investigator in the first half of this year, and what he said to the masses in his released statement this week.
Forget about certain confusing facts about the case, including the 27 phone calls — averaging over 35 minutes in length — shared between Tracy and Tucker over an eight-month stretch before the phone call which would eventually destroy everything Tucker tried to build here.
"When it came out, it was a shock to everyone," Mosley said of Tucker's suspension, going on to say the Spartans did their best to move on quickly and prepare for their upcoming opponent.
"We couldn't live in the past and start to cry or make excuses," Mosley said. "Because, Washington didn't care what was going on with us and our program."
Boy, he was right about that.
Michigan State just got hammered by the Huskies, far worse than the Spartans' 39-28 defeat in Seattle last season. The whole time, Tucker was sitting somewhere else, doing God-knows what instead of having to take ownership for this mess he's left for Barnett, Mosley, Duplain and the rest of the MSU football team to try to clean up.
To their credit, that trio of program representatives took ownership for what happened on the field, and handled themselves admirably. They didn't deserve to have to do it, though.
Tucker is the man responsible for assembling this Michigan State roster. Tucker is the man responsible for retaining offensive coordinator Jay Johnson and defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton, who combined to orchestrate a 713-to-261 discrepancy in total yards between the Huskies and the Spartans.
Tucker is the man who has failed, repeatedly, to fix MSU's woeful defensive secondary, whether the cornerbacks were coached by Travares Tillman (2021), Tucker himself (2022), or former Buffalo Bills assistant coach Jim Salgado (2023).
Tucker is the man responsible for the inability of offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic and tight ends coach Ted Gilmore to fix Michigan State's running game, which has averaged a lowly 104.1 yards per game in 23 outings without Kenneth Walker III in the backfield.
And, Tucker is responsible for putting himself in this position over a woman he brought in to speak to his team about sexual misconduct, who he's unmarried to, who he had no business being on the phone with, doing that, on April 22, 2022.
I don't care if Tucker was estranged from his wife of over 20 years; he hadn't divorced her. That's still cheating in my book. That's still a betrayal of the mother of his two sons, and a betrayal of those two young men as well, in my book. Call me a prude.
Regardless of your opinion on that, Tucker still showed a complete and utter lack of judgement for a man making $9.5 million per year, who was charged with the accountability, direction and leadership of the over 100 young men who occupy his football program.
Mel Tucker was an utter failure of a head coaching hire by Michigan State in 2020, and that failure was on full display as Washington went up and down the field, scoring at will, on Saturday night.
Now, back to Barnett. The man is a 56-year-old adult — and a well-paid adult at that. He doesn't need me to defend him. He can handle this. He'll get through it. But, it was tough to watch him take ownership of this humiliation tonight. Barnett wore his disappointment over tonight's game all over his face.
This is a man who proudly played for Michigan State in the mid-1980s. A man who has coached in East Lansing for 15 years, and who's heart's desire is to be the head coach at MSU. After the game, Barnett said he'll never forget how tonight felt. That's a tough pill to swallow.
"First of all, give [Washington] credit, they're a good football team," Barnett said. "Didn't realize [MSU allowed a school record 713 yards of offense]. I'll never forget that though. First time being a head coach in a game, and I'll remember all of this. I promise you all, I'll remember every single bit of it."
Mosley and Duplain acquitted themselves well at the podium, answering questions tonight as the face of the locker room. They weren't paid to sit up there and do that, regardless of whatever name, image and likeness funds they've earned over the last couple years. That money doesn't come from the university, at least it's not supposed to.
"We're eager to get back out there and get better," Duplain said of the locker room. "Eager to watch the film...Our team's bought in. This isn't going to make us worse, it's going to make us better. We're going to learn from this and get better."
"When you face adversity, it's about how you respond," Mosley added. "So, myself and the rest of our team, we're challenged with that. We've got to get back to the drawing board, get things cleaned up and get ready to move forward to next week.
"Myself, along with the rest of the individuals on the team — we've got to take it up another notch. We had too many mistakes, self-imposed mistakes, and when you face a good team like we did tonight, you can't do that."
A man of Christian faith, Barnett said his belief plays a role in how he is coping with the current situation at Michigan State and how he will endure.
"My faith should be never wavering, and it isn't," Barnett said. "Out there, a couple times, almost. But, that's never going to change. You go up and down. If you're truly into the Word, like I am and I say that I am and I profess that I am, there are ups and downs. There's valleys you hit, as well as the mountaintops.
"This is a valley moment. The good thing about it is you can come back from valley moments if you truly believe and trust and then start to work on the things that need to be worked on. And, so, valley moment right now, but we'll get back up to the mountain."
The mountain ahead Michigan State needs to climb is steep. The Spartans' have three Top 10 opponents left on the schedule in Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, as well as four other road games in Big Ten play. That's a daunting task for any team, much less one who has had to endure what these players and coaches have this week.
"We treat every game like it's the biggest game on our schedule," Duplain said. "We're going to attack each week with our best effort and we're going to get better each week."
"It starts with just looking ourself in the mirror first," Mosley added. "We're a team, and when you go through a difficult time like this you've got to see what you can do to improve individually, and as a team.
"We can't worry about what anybody else is doing if we're not doing our stuff right. From players, coaches to support personnel, there's improvement that has to be made and we're going to do that. We have no choice."
The only thing left for Mosley, Duplain and their teammates to do is move forward as best they can. Their trust lies in Barnett now, and that trust is better placed there than it was with Tucker.
"We're bought in to coach Barnett, fully," Duplain said. "We trust everything he says. We had good unity going into this week. I think the guys are bought in. I think everyone was mission-focused. We just made too many mistakes."
"Absolutely," Mosley agreed. "We're definitely bought in, all together, under coach Barnett."
Step one for Michigan State is to get back on stable footing. The further we get from the earth-shattering news of Tucker's misdeeds, the easier that should become for the Spartans. However, make no mistake, the odds are stacked against this team, and they'll have to recalibrate quickly with Maryland coming to town in seven days' time.
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