Mel Tucker: Michigan State football can't be 'seduced by success' after stunning upset
EAST LANSING – It was a turning point for Michigan State football, either to strengthen its bond or have its togetherness torn apart.
The Spartans responded with resiliency, even with eight players suspended and the depth further strained by injuries, to put together perhaps their grittiest performance in Mel Tucker’s tenure in Saturday’s 23-15 victory at then-No. 13 Illinois.
“The best thing to do is to stick together, and our leaders have done that," Tucker said Monday during his weekly news conference. "And when your good players and your leaders are the guys leading the charge, that's signifies buy-in, and then the costs tend to follow.”
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The upset puts MSU (4-5, 2-4 Big Ten) two wins from bowl eligibility, with Rutgers (4-5, 1-5) visiting Spartan Stadium at noon Saturday for the first of two straight home games against struggling opponents. Indiana is in town Nov. 19, before the Spartans visit No. 15 Penn State on Nov. 26 to finish the regular season.
“I don't think that's much of what we're thinking about,” senior safety Xavier Henderson said Saturday about worrying about bowl eligibility. “This past week was a tough week. We're just focusing on trying to get better. Especially on the defensive side of the ball, we're progressing.”
Tucker reiterated that Monday and said his team must remain in day-to-day mode as it figures out a number of roster issues.
“We told the guys there's still a lot of football left to play,” he said. “But I reiterated with the staff this morning that we don't need to talk about winning out and bowl eligibility and things like that. We need to focus on what it takes to prepare to be in a position to win games. And that's the process.”
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The Spartans went to Illinois significantly shorthanded on defense due to the suspensions in the fallout of a postgame fight in the Michigan Stadium tunnel with two Wolverines. That included three MSU starters in linebacker Jacoby Windmon, defensive end Zion Young and defensive back Angelo Grose; two key backups in defensive end Brandon Wright and defensive back Justin White; and three others in linebacker Itayvion “Tank” Brown and defensive backs Malcom Jones and Khary Crump.
Tucker said he has “no new information” about the ongoing criminal investigation in Ann Arbor that precipitated last week's suspensions.
“We're taking it one day at a time. We have the guys that we have today,” he said. “And if something changes, then we'll adapt and adjust. … It's all the way up to game time. We've done that since I've been here, and we're doing it now."
However, Tucker did add a player “can't jump in (to playing in a game) if he hasn't been in the meetings or he hasn't been even at practice.”
MSU also had three other defensive ends out due to injury in Jeff Pietrowski, Khris Bogle and Michael Fletcher. The Spartans lost defensive tackle Jacob Slade in the second quarter and had others on the defensive line going in and out with injuries all afternoon.
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“When guys go down and they're really good players, it's not a good thing. But it's next man up for us,” Tucker said. “We had guys step up and having maybe new roles, maybe guys' roles increased, and everyone just bumps up a man. Like we talked about during fall camp, we need everyone to be prepared to play, because it's a game of attrition.
“Some years, you can go relatively injury free. But most of the time, your depth is going to be tested. And our depth has been certainly tested the season. And we're starting to see some progress from some of the guys. ... We're making progress, especially on the defensive side of the ball where we've had the lion's share of our injuries.”
One of the big things Tucker told his team during their meetings Monday was to not get “seduced by success” of beating a ranked opponent on the road. That means not looking past the Scarlet Knights, whose only victory since the nonconference schedule came against the Hoosiers, who have lost six straight and are winless in Big Ten play since opening the season with a win over Illinois.
“We have to learn from the game, good and bad,” Tucker said. “Evaluate it, own it, and then shift to neutral and then move on to what's next, which was focusing on the preparation for this game.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Read more on the Michigan State Spartans and sign up for our Spartans newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football's Mel Tucker: Can't be 'seduced by success'
