He won’t be there for your junior year. Just watch.
If an opposing recruiter in the Pac-12 had said that about Mel Tucker a year ago, he’d have been laughed out of the living room. The guy just got here, champ. Get real.
Now, though?
Now, not so much.
“This spring is going to be (interesting),” Blair Angulo, Mountain/Island recruiting analyst with 247Sports.com, said of the football coach and his reported flirtations with Michigan State. “Once they start getting some of these recruits on campus … especially some of the in-state recruits that they’re targeting, I do feel that questions will be asked.
“That topic will come up with Michigan State. Was it a realistic opportunity for him? This spring will be big for him to hopefully put out those fires and also keep his name as hot as possible.”
A tricky balance, that one. You want Kirk Herbstreit and Paul Finebaum spreading the gospel of your awesomeness anytime the red light comes on. You also don’t want to look like one of those 1-800 guys with wandering eyes.
Which is why it was curious not so much that Tucker would take a call from Michigan State — a good job, even in a brutal Big Ten East — but that word of said call got leaked. We know the Spartans’ athletic director We know he flew out early that afternoon. The rest is conjecture, spin, or both.
And if the loose lips were in Tucker’s camp, what would be the endgame? More dollars from the Buffs? More dough for his lieutenants, as CU’s assistant-coach salary pool ranked eighth out of 10 public Pac-12 schools? Not more length, certainly, unless bad feelings linger over a contract that was originally approved at six years but had to be capped by state law at five — through 2023 instead of 2024.
When you tell them itap about education, they say itap about business. When you tell them itap about business, they say itap about education. Coaches will turn on a dime for a nickel eight days a week.
But there’s a reason the Buffs fan in your life still looks exhausted from running the emotional gamut between Friday nightap Detroit Free Press report and Yes, Mel was 5-7 in Year 1, but it was 5-7 with sprinkles.
He beat Nebraska in overtime in his first game at Folsom Field, then celebrated by posing for selfies with fans. He won his Pac-12 road opener with no pants on. His guys finished the season by pushing around Stanford and Washington, perennial league bullies, at home.
He shook hands. He kissed babies. He went all in, everywhere he could, and dared you to do the same.
Now, though?
Now, you wonder.
“I do feel like (the Spartans rumor) will have a positive impact in the short term,” Angulo said. “But when you start looking at the long term, when there are coaching opportunities opening up, and — especially if he continues that upward trajectory — the first name mentioned is Mel Tucker.”
Too soon, Mel.
Too. Dang. Soon.
“You can’t ever really blame a person,” Angulo countered, “for entertaining the idea.”
You can’t. But those entertainments can have consequences, too. Once a coach’s name it has a tendency to stay there once the next big ship comes along.
He won’t be there for your junior year. Just watch.
“Mike Leach, how many times was his name spun around the last three or four years?” Angulo asked. “You can only get to a certain level of pay before you’re kind of maxed out. At some point you have to move on and go to a big moneymaking program.”
Itap a compliment and a curse, all in the same breath. Today, Michigan State. Tomorrow, Auburn. Or Illinois. Or Tennessee. Friday was a warning shot. Unless CU ups the ante, the next one’s going to draw something that hurts a heck of a lot more than pride.
