Moving on From Big Win Won’t Be ‘An Issue’ for Michigan State

First-year head coach Mel Tucker says moving on from big win against Michigan won't be 'an issue.'

East Lansing – It's been a while since Mel Tucker was on campus, experiencing the MSU-Michigan rivalry.

Since the late 90s, to be exact.

In year-one as head coach of MSU, he rode the bus to Ann Arbor a three-touchdown underdog and left with the Paul Bunyan trophy – leading his team to a 27-24 victory over Michigan. 

"I'm very proud of how our guys played on Saturday. It was a big win for us and for all of our Spartan fans," Tucker told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. "Thank you for the tremendous amount of support that you showed our team after we brought the Paul Bunyan Trophy back to East Lansing, where it belongs."

However, Michigan won't be the topic of conversation any longer. Tucker continues to stress the importance of the next game.

"We have to move on to the next opponent. I've been in rivalry games before, won rivalry games. They're major accomplishments, and they're important, certainly, for everyone that's involved – the current players, our former players, our fans, our alumni. But at some point, you have to move on to what's next," said Tucker. "As the head football coach, I have to set the tone in how we do that. That's what we do. It's not an issue."

Kirk Ferentz is in his 22nd season at Iowa and is the longest-tenured coach in college football.

His 162 victories in all games coached as a member of the Big Ten are tied with Joe Paterno for fourth all-time, yet, for the first time in twenty years and have lost games to Purdue and Northwestern by a combined five points.

Michigan State hasn't traveled to Kinnick Stadium in seven years, nor have they played Iowa since 2017, but the Spartans have won three in a row and will look to make it four.

"Iowa is a very tough place to play," Tucker said. "I don't think we have any players on our roster that have played there, but I've been there, and we have several coaches on our staff that have been there as a player or a coach, and we know that it's a tough place to play, whether they have fans or not ... it is a tremendous challenge for us and this week of preparation will have to be even a notch above what we did last week."

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