EAST LANSING, Mich. — The numbers can be daunting. At times, inside Michigan State’s Duffy Daugherty Football Building, they were even taunting.
“We used to have signs up in the building showing how many passing yards we gave up,” said Xavier Henderson, the Spartans’ fifth-year senior safety. “But that’s just Coach Tuck trying to motivate us.”
And the way Mel Tucker sees it, there’s no sense in hiding from what was ultimately his team’s Achilles heel last season: A pass defense that got picked apart like none other.
Michigan State’s opponents combined to throw for 4,222 yards last season, allowing an average of 324.8 yards per game (including the Peach Bowl) that ranked 130th out of 130 FBS teams in college football. And for a program that once proudly advertised its ball-hawking secondary as the “No Fly Zone,” that sort of effort simply won’t fly in 2022.
Last month at Big Ten media days, when Tucker was asked if he expected improvement from his pass defense this fall, he laughed, “I hope so. We can’t get any worse.”
But his message to the players since the start of spring practice has been a bit less jovial.
“I said, ‘Listen, we were last in the country — dead-ass last,’ ” Tucker said. “ ‘That’s going to change. But it’s going to change with the guys in this room and the coaches here. That’s how it’s going to change.’ ”
Return to roots
One notable change already can be seen on the practice field this fall, as Tucker has gone back to his roots, taking over the position-group responsibilities coaching Michigan State’s cornerbacks.
As he revamped his defensive staff last winter, Tucker added a pass-rush specialist, Brandon Jordan, in addition to hiring Marco Coleman to replace longtime MSU line coach Ron Burton. With FBS head coaches limited to 10 assistants working with players in on-field roles, Tucker assumed some of the duties held last season by Travares Tillman, who left to coach defensive backs at his alma mater, Georgia Tech.
Tucker, who played defensive back for Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin some 30 years ago, has coached the position throughout his career, including stops at LSU, Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia, as well as the Cleveland Browns. And if he looks rejuvenated by this latest switch that began in the spring, he sounded like it, too, on the first day of fall practice last week, running his cornerbacks through press-technique fundamentals while secondary coach Harlon Barnett focused on the safeties. (During group and team periods, when Tucker returns to a “big-picture” role, as he puts it, Barnett then oversees the cornerbacks as well.)
“It helps me mentally, because I just love to coach,” said Tucker, whose predecessor, Mark Dantonio, operated in similar fashion for part of his tenure in East Lansing. “It relaxes me a lot more when I can actually get my hands on guys and work with them, because that’s what I love to do.”
What he needs to do, though, is find a way to shore up the back end of the Spartans defense, at least a little. Michigan State was geared up to stop the run, ranking in the top 20 nationally in rushing yards allowed and opponents’ yards-per-carry average in 2021. But especially as injuries mounted in the second half of the season, teams found an easier way to score points.
“We got exposed in games where the opponent's strong suit was throwing the football,” Tucker said. “When they had really good quarterback play, good protection and good receivers, then we struggled.”
That’s an understatement, really. The Spartans’ last five Big Ten opponents combined for 2,055 passing yards and 17 TDs through the air, including Aidan O’Connell’s 536-yard clinic in Purdue’s 40-29 upset win that torpedoed Michigan State’s Big Ten title hopes.
Blame to go around
Not all of that can be blamed on the secondary, of course. The Spartans’ linebackers, a group that consistently struggled in coverage last season, are now being coached by defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton. And thanks to a position switch for Darius Snow, along with transfer-portal additions in Jacoby Windmon (UNLV) and Aaron Brule (Mississippi State), linebacker could be a strength of MSU's defense this fall.
Meanwhile, most of the secondary returns, with both starting safeties — Henderson and junior Angelo Grose — and a handful of corners in the mix competing for playing time.
Last year’s two SEC transfers, Ronald Williams (Alabama) and Chester Kimbrough (Florida), are the incumbent starters. But Georgia grad transfer Ameer Speed, a big, rangy athlete Tucker coached in 2017-18, likely will assume one starting job outside and allow Kimbrough to move to the nickel.
Charles Brantley, who provided one of the secondary’s few highlights as a true freshman with a late interception in the win over Michigan, also is fighting for a role, as is Marqui Lowery, the ex-Louisville transfer. Both were limited by injuries last season.
"A lot of those guys are back, so there's a chip on the shoulder, and then pride kicks in,” said Tucker, who also has a pair of true freshmen at corner in Caleb Coley and Ade Willie. “In order to get to where we need to go, that group has to play really well. In order to have a really good defense, you have to have really good corner play. So there’s a lot of pressure on those guys, and they know it. But that’s a good thing.”
And the fact that it’s Tucker in their ear every day, reminding them about it on the practice field, well, that’s probably a good thing, too.
“What he’s got to say holds weight,” Henderson said. “And I think it gives a little bit of confidence to the corners in the room when they’ve got somebody like him coaching them.”
