EAST LANSING, Mich. — From the day Mel Tucker was hired, he’s been hammering one theme over and over again: Culture.
Winning is one thing and sure, Michigan State had done plenty of that before Tucker was named the program’s 25th coach in February 2020. From Duffy Daugherty to Biggie Munn to George Perles to Nick Saban to Mark Dantonio, there was plenty of winning.
What Tucker envisioned, though, was even more.
Yes, he immediately adopted the chip-on-the-shoulder attitude that had been such a big part of the Spartans’ success, namely under Dantonio. But Tucker made it clear there would be a process under his leadership, a process that he believes will make winning — not just games, but championships — the norm at Michigan State.
The culture, Tucker believes, is what it’s all about.
“We have shifted our culture at Michigan State,” Tucker declared before the Spartans began preseason camp. “It's a culture that is rooted in a relentless mindset in everything we do. Culture is how we live and behave every single day, a culture of accountability, attention to detail, sense of urgency, connection, being authentic, being real, and good old-fashioned hard work. You roll your sleeves up and figure out a way to get the job done.”
Entering his third season, it’s fair to ask: Is the culture Tucker preaches starting to take hold?
The results on the field last season say it is. After going 2-5 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Spartans won 11 games last year, beating Michigan for a second straight season before reaching a New Year’s Six bowl game, knocking off Pittsburgh in the Peach Bowl.
But that’s a small sample size. A better indicator, according to Tucker, is whether he’s hearing his message from those around him. In other words, are his players starting to repeat the catchphrases Tucker has made so common around Michigan State football and are they living by the message?
“We're big on keeping the main thing, the main thing and that's in the room,” junior linebacker Darius Snow said when asked about outside expectations. “If we focus too much about what's happened and what people are saying outside, you can get too high and too low. It's about being neutral (thinking) or keeping the main thing the main thing and that the standard is the standard.
“We know what our goal is. We know what we need to do achieve it. Every game on our schedule is winnable, every game on our schedule is also losable if we don’t do what we’re supposed to do. So at the end of the day, it’s about what we believe in our room."
Snow, of course, has been around. As a member of Dantonio’s final recruiting class, Snow is entering his fourth year in the program with the bulk of his playing experience under Tucker.
But it’s not just the veterans who sound the way Snow does.
“It’s been a great fit and what attracted me the most was the culture,” said linebacker Jacoby Windmon, a transfer from UNLV. “The guys are motivated and Coach Tuck, he’s a great person. Outside of coaching, he’s just a great person.”
Added Georgia transfer cornerback Ameer Speed, who played for Tucker when Tucker was the defensive coordinator for the Bulldogs, “It’s just the culture, the discipline, the details. I enjoy the details. I feel like they're very important to football, like the small things. They matter. A lot of places and people think they don’t, but the small things add up and affect the big things. So the fact that we emphasize that here, I love it.”
With Tucker’s emphasis on culture appearing to take hold in the Spartans’ locker room, the next step is translating that into consistent success.
Tucker knows something about that, having coached at some of the nation’s top programs under some of the best coaches. From Ohio State to Alabama, Tucker has won championships and it’s the only thing that drives him at Michigan State.
In fact, it’s why last month, when asked about complacency setting in, Tucker was incredulous.
“We didn’t do anything last year,” Tucker exclaimed.
The message was clear: winning 11 games was great, but the Spartans didn’t play in the Big Ten championship game, which means their biggest goals were left unmet.
“That’s not the standard here at Michigan State,” fifth-year senior wide receiver Jayden Reed said. “We look to win every game on our schedule. So you know, the two losses were games I'm pretty sure we could have won if we prepared differently and stuff like that, you know, just attack the game different. That’s just the standard here — to win every game on our schedule, and that's why we're not satisfied.”
It matters little to those in Michigan State’s locker room that their goals don’t match up with many of the predictions. But why should it matter? After all, most assumed the Spartans would barely make a bowl game last season and that was proven to be a wild underestimation.
A similar feeling exits this season as Michigan State is respected — the Spartans are ranked No. 15 in the nation entering Friday night’s season opener against Western Michigan — but not picked to win the Big Ten East, a division most believe is Ohio State’s to lose.
That hasn’t changed the approach for Tucker, who is ready to see his players start to take ownership the way he and his staff have since they walked in the door.
“It’s just his ‘want to,’” fifth-year senior safety Xavier Henderson said. “I don't know anybody who wants to win as bad as he does, honestly. He was sleeping in his office during the season for periods of time, just trying to figure out ways to get better. He wants to win so bad that he's not letting us relax and he’s making sure we're not letting our teammates relax. He wants it to be a player-led team more than coach-led team.
“He has instilled that in us and so we're taking it from there.”
Where the Spartans take it appears to be up to them. They have plenty of talent — Reed and quarterback Payton Thorne could be primed for big seasons while the interior of the defensive line is as good as it gets. But they also have questions along the offensive line and in the secondary.
The schedule is tough, as it usually is in the Big Ten East. A four-week stretch in October likely will tell the story with back-to-back home games against Ohio State and Wisconsin followed by an off week then a trip to Michigan.
By then, Tucker hopes his team is clicking on all cylinders. If they are, his commitment to culture likely will be a big reason why.
“Our culture is all about how we live and behave every day,” Tucker said. “Those are actions. Those are behaviors. It's a process. What are we doing every single day to get better? Aggregation of marginal gains. Everyone just get a little bit better every single day.
“We're going to continue to hammer our process, cement our culture, and that's what's going to create the outcomes for us. There's laser focus, and there's hunger. We've got a chip on our shoulder. All our guys are bought in — the coaches and the players — so it’s just a matter of continuing to work our butts off.”
