EAST LANSING, Mich. — It hardly seemed like anything was different for Mel Tucker.
As the Michigan State coach navigated nearly 30 minutes with the media to open the week on Monday, it felt like business as usual. Judging from Tucker's demeanor, it could have easily been any week on the schedule with very few tips the Spartans were getting set for what has amounted to the biggest game on the schedule with their annual showdown with Michigan set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Ann Arbor.
“We had a very focused, intense practice,” Tucker said. “We’ll hit (Tuesday) and Wednesday, but the focus was there. And we know what we have to do within our process to prepare. We’re going to need to be tough, disciplined, and selfless this week and carry it to the game.”
Yup. Pretty standard game-week stuff from Tucker.
But there is rarely a time this game will ever feel ordinary. The intensity — some say hatred — between the schools some 60 miles apart is impossible to ignore.
So, when it was suggested Tucker might not have understood the rivalry when he first experienced it as a graduate assistant back in the late 1990s, he didn’t hesitate.
“I knew it well,” Tucker snapped, showing a brief spark of emotion. “You don’t have to be here (to understand it).”
So, yeah, this game is a big deal.
It’s a big deal when both teams are good, like last season when the Spartans and Wolverines were both unbeaten and ranked in the top 10 in the nation. And it’s nearly as big this season, even as Michigan State (3-4, 1-3 Big Ten) has struggled while Michigan is on a potential path to a second straight Big Ten championship.
The Wolverines (7-0, 4-0) want to not only remain unbeaten and even with Ohio State at the top of the East Division standings, but they desperately want to end a two-game skid to the Spartans, with coach Jim Harbaugh even mentioning back in July that his team had four goals this season and the first was to beat Michigan State.
And Harbaugh, no doubt, wouldn’t mind getting a win over Tucker, the only coach in Michigan State history to win his first two games against Michigan.
Of course, even that hardly registered for Tucker.
“It only comes up in a situation like this when someone brings it up,” Tucker said. “It’s not part of my thinking.”
It’s understandable. After all, what happened in 2020 — a 27-24 victory for Michigan State to give Tucker his first win as the Spartans’ coach — and last season when Michigan State rallied to win the top-10 showdown has nothing to do with what will take place on Saturday night.
Sure, many of the players are the same, but Tucker understands you’re only as good as your last game, and he’d much rather find himself at 3-0 against the Wolverines come Saturday night than explaining away his first loss.
Not only would Tucker continue to improve on a mark not matched by the likes of Duffy Daugherty, Biggie Munn, George Perles, Nick Saban or Mark Dantonio, he’d likely have turned Michigan State’s season around at the expense of his team’s archrival.
That means there’s plenty on the line, and while Tucker was outwardly calm on Monday, it’s covering up what is simmering just beneath the surface.
“He’s ready to go,” quarterback Payton Thorne said, opting not to divulge too much information. “He’s excited.”
Fifth-year senior safety Xavier Henderson was willing to go a bit further.
“Coach Tuck is already an intense guy as it is, but he gets a little riled up this week,” Henderson said. “And he does a good job of kind of explaining to the new guys what it means, what this rivalry means.”
And for Jacoby Windmon, new to the rivalry this year after transferring in from UNLV, he sees Tucker dialing in even more to what he has all season.
“It’s really a buildup to the intensity,” Windmon said. “It’s always that each week, just getting better. But this week in particular, it's such a big game on our schedule that it gives you the ability to focus even more on the smaller details. And that’s what he's looking for, you know, the small things. That’s what matters the most. And I’ve noticed that he’s been like that throughout the whole year, but just coming into this week he's even more like that. He’s even more on us about the details and execution.
“So for the most part, he's pretty much the same guy, but it’s just that rivalry in him that brings out the more passionate side of the game for him. So he's excited about it.”
As he should be. And, frankly, it’s fine if he avoids the emotion when speaking to the media. It’s clear that with his team, Tucker is as fired up as anyone.
After all, as he pointed out, he’s been in his share of rivalries and this one is as big as any. Tucker truly does understand the impact.
“To see Paul (Bunyan) in there, it’s special, it’s special,” Tucker said after last year’s victory. “He’s in there and we’re taking pictures with him, guys were dancing and things like that. … Those are memories. Like coach (Tom) Izzo told our team during the week, he spoke to them after practice, he said, ‘Memories are for a lifetime.’ That was an epic game. That was a classic. I mean that was a big-time game.
“It’s an honor and privilege to be a part of something like that.”
And even with long odds, Tucker is aiming to go 3-0. There’s nothing ordinary about that.
