Michigan State's Mel Tucker ranked 13th-best Head Coach in Big Ten
East Lansing, Mich. – CBS Sports released its 2021 Big Ten football coach rankings on July 7, and once again, Michigan State's Mel Tucker is near the bottom.
After going 2-5 in his debut season with the Spartans, several CBS Sports and 247Sports college football insiders assembled the recent list, which ranks Tucker 13th overall, ahead of one other coach in Maryland's Mike Locksley.
Unsurprisingly, Ohio State's Ryan Day is No. 1, followed by Pat Fitzgerald (Northwestern), James Franklin (Penn State), Kirk Ferentz (Iowa), and Paul Chryst (Wisconsin).
"I can't speak for my fellow voters, but Mel Tucker's 2-5 record in his first season at Michigan State doesn't mean much to me. While every coach in the country was facing some impossible situations last year, what Tucker dealt with was incredibly difficult," CBS Sports Writer Tom Fornelli wrote. "He was hired in February, just a short time before COVID shut the world down, so he never had much of a chance to learn his new team and prepare for his first season. So, in that respect, managing to win twice -- including a win over Michigan -- was remarkable. Still, as far as I'm concerned when it comes to judging Tucker's tenure in East Lansing, the 2021 season will be his first."
The coronavirus pandemic hit MSU extremely hard, but since the calendar year flipped, Tucker overhauled Michigan State's roster, welcoming 15 new scholarship players from the transfer portal alongside the 2021 recruiting class.
And since ending on a sour note at Penn State, the staff has operated relatively normally, orchestrating a winter strength and conditioning program before holding spring ball.
2021 Michigan State Football Schedule
- Sept. 3: at Northwestern (9 p.m., ESPN)
- Sept. 11: Youngstown State (12 p.m., Big Ten Network)
- Sept. 18: at Miami (12 p.m. ABC/ESPN)
- Sept. 25: Nebraska
- Oct. 2: Western Kentucky (Homecoming, 7:30 p.m.)
- Oct. 9: at Rutgers (12 p.m.)
- Oct. 16: at Indiana (12 p.m.)
- Oct. 23: Bye
- Oct. 30: Michigan
- Nov. 6: at Purdue
- Nov. 13: Maryland
- Nov. 20: at Ohio State
- Nov. 27: Penn State
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