Anonymous opposing coach says Michigan State is the Big Ten's Ole Miss

In the transfer portal era of college football, a number of teams have lived and died with the ebbs of college football’s free agency. Michigan State is chief among those teams, especially in the Big Ten concference.

With another transfer-heavy roster as he heads into his fourth year at the helm at Michigan State, Mel Tucker has turned the Spartans into the league’s version of Ole Miss, according to an anonymous coach speaking in Athlon Sports’ season preview. Ole Miss, led by “Portal King” Lane Kiffin, had 57 total transfers (in and out of the program) in the 2023 cycle.

While MSU’s total number came to 38, the mode of bringing in a spate of transfers to restock the roster year-to-year elicited the comparison.

“In the Big Ten, they’re our Ole Miss. They’re getting better at high school recruiting, but they’re still locked on the portal,” the anonymous coach said.

The year-to-year roster construction has yielded mixed results for MSU so far under Tucker.

In the 2020 season, the Spartans went 2-5 with a team that Tucker inherited shortly before National Signing Day. He overhauled the roster with a number of transfers going into 2021 — highlighted by star running back Kenneth Walker III. But beyond Walker, MSU got big contributions from defensive transfers like linebacker Quavaris Crouch and defensive back Chester Kimbrough.

It led to an 11-2 season with a signature victory over Michigan in East Lansing, capped with a Peach Bowl victory over Pitt.

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The portal-heavy team-building strategy didn’t work out nearly as well in 2022, though.

The best players MSU featured on offense — quarterback Payton Thorne and receivers Keon Coleman and Jayden Reed — were all recruits who signed with the Spartans out of high school and the offense line was set back by serious injuries and a lack of depth in the spring. Transfers at running back didn’t pan out nearly as well as the year prior and the defense was devoid of notable playmakers after Jacoby Windmon’s early-season tear.

As a result, the Spartans went 5-7 and struggled to deliver consistent results on a week-to-week basis. It’s how the same team that went on the road and beat a good Illinois team also lost to Indiana at home, in large part due to a series of special teams lapses.

“They’re the 50-50 program in the league: You never know what you’re gonna get when they actually line up against you,” the anonymous coach said. “They’re talented enough to beat most teams, and then sometimes they can’t put anything together.”

Tucker and Michigan State mined the portal again in 2023, but also learned that it can take as much as it gives, losing Thorne and Coleman to Auburn and Florida State, respectively. They brought in promising pieces, such as edge rusher Tunmise Adeleye from Texas A&M, but time will tell if Tucker and the Spartans have struck gold in the transfer portal again.