How Mel Tucker is preparing Michigan State football for new-look Western Michigan

EAST LANSING — Game week has arrived, and so has Mel Tucker’s coach speak.

That means not giving away many — if any — secrets for what No. 14 Michigan State football has planned for Friday night, when Western Michigan visits Spartan Stadium for the season-opener.

“We don't want to help our opponents,” Tucker said Monday during his first weekly press conference. “I try to answer the questions as best I can, but I'm always going to do what's best for the green and white.”

In other words, Tucker was reluctant to give concrete answers to some of the more pressing questions about his team four days away from their 7 p.m. kickoff against the Broncos (ESPN). Cases in point:

∙ On the battle between transfers Jalen Berger and Jarek Broussard and if it will be a two-running back committee approach: “We'll just have to see.”

∙ On who will return kicks and punts for MSU: “We'll just have to see.”

∙ On the Spartans’ kicking competition between freshman Jack Stone, sophomore Stephan Rusnak and recently added transfer Ben Patton: “They did. a good job today, I think, in practice. So we'll make a decision at some point. I feel good about it.”

∙ On if quarterback Payton Thorne has helped get MSU’s defensive staff any in preparing to face his father, Jeff, who is the Broncos’ new offensive coordinator: “No.”

Maybe the only bit of discernable information is that Thorne will be the Spartans’ starting quarterback for the second year, though Tucker technically did not confirm that.

All kidding aside, being tight-lipped worked a year ago for Tucker. In preparing to open 2021 at Northwestern, Tucker kept details of the competition between Thorne and grad transfer Anthony Russo mum until just before kickoff, when he announced his guy. Thorne started that victory and all 13 games in MSU’s 11-2 season, while Russo got just 23 snaps all fall.

And Tucker continues to be quick to remind anyone who will listen that “a year ago, we weren't ranked. We were picked to be one of the worst five teams in the country.”

“Really, it's the expectations from the outside that have really ramped up, so to speak,” Tucker said. “We're ranked going into the season, and there's an expectation for us to be a good football team and things like that and to be able to win games. …

“We have standards and we have expectations for ourselves. They're high, and that hasn't changed.”

The Broncos also are coming off their best season under coach Tim Lester, who enters his sixth year with a 32-25 overall record and four straight winning records. He hasn’t had a losing season since taking over in 2017, and the former WMU quarterback is banking on new offensive coordinator Jeff Thorne — Payton’s father — to help continue the magic that allowed the Broncos to rank 12th in the Football Bowl Subdivision at 466.4 yards per game last season thanks to the nation's 17th-best run offense (212.8 yards per game) and fourth-best time of possession (35:16). WMU scored 32.5 points a game.

The elder Thorne arrives in Kalamazoo after spending seven years as head coach at Division III North Central College in suburban Chicago, where he won the 2019 national title and played for another championship last season. Tucker said his staff has been mining tape of the play-caller’s time at the small college since 2002 as well as high school footage of the Broncos’ new starting quarterback, redshirt freshman Jack Salopek.

“Everyone has a role to play in preparation. … And so whatever that role is, you gotta do your job in practice,” Tucker said. “If you're on the scout team, you got to give each other a great look. If you're on the first or second team, make sure you've studied opponent, make sure the scout team is giving you the right look. If a guy's not running the route properly, you gotta tell the guy, That's not how they run it. That's not what they've showing on tape. You gotta run it like this.'

“It's the intensity of the preparation that's really what the key to the deal is. Everything else is just noise for us.”

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: How Mel Tucker is preparing Michigan State football for WMU