Mel Tucker responds to Pat Narduzzi dissing Michigan State, Big Ten

Mel Tucker didn’t respond viscerally to Pat Narduzzi panning Michigan State and the Big Ten while propping up Pittsburgh and the ACC as a whole.

Last week, Narduzzi made headlines claiming he was unimpressed with the Spartans last season, despite losing to Tucker’s squad in their Peach Bowl matchup.

“If that’s one of the best Big Ten teams, let’s go to the Big Ten and win it every year,” Narduzzi said on a recent episode of Bazzy’s Black & Gold Banter, referencing playing the Spartans close without star quarterback Kenny Pickett.

The highly anticipated response from Tucker proved one thing — the Spartans coach believes Michigan State’s trophy speaks for itself.

“I really prefer not to get into hypotheticals, especially games that were played in the past and were decided on the field,” answered Tucker.

Time will tell if Mel Tucker dousing the fire at Big Ten Media Days will be the end of the war of words started by Pat Narduzzi, but the college football world won’t mind some more juicy quotes to sink our teeth into.

More on Pat Narduzzi, Mel Tucker

Of course, Michigan State faithful — and Big Ten fans as a whole — didn’t take too kindly to Narduzzi’s comments. However, the Pittsburgh coach decided to double-down when asked to elaborate on his comments.

“You hear all these things during the summer about the Power 2s and all this stuff. We’ll just start there. You know, we play some darn good football in the ACC, and I think people forget about it,” began Narduzzi. “I think Dabo [Swinney] made a comment yesterday about everybody talks about, oh, Clemson had a down year, and he is exactly right. People need to wake up.

“How about the teams that are getting better? I think Pittsburgh is getting better, so we’ll start there. Again, any time you get — I’ve coached in the Big Ten for eight years, so I know it. I don’t know the SEC, so I’m not going to claim. I’ve never coached in the SEC, but I do know the Big Ten. I feel very confident — and, again, it’s not being arrogant. It’s just kind of knowing the landscape and knowing what we played against in The Peach Bowl, just would have liked to have our backup quarterback the play the whole game.”

Continuing, Narduzzi believes he’s not disrespecting the Big Ten or Mel Tucker’s squad — he’s just that confident in Pittsburgh and the ACC.

“That’s just confidence. That’s no disrespect to the Big Ten or Michigan State. It’s just about Pitt and about the ACC,” added Narduzzi. “Again, that’s all I can tell you. I think ACC football is really, really good, and that’s really the comment there that I was trying to get across.”

Pat Narduzzi may believe it’s simply confidence in his team, but he’s providing some bulletin board material for Michigan State and Big Ten programs as a whole. Many eyes will be on the Panthers, praying on their downfall in 2022.