Former Browns assistant Mel Tucker gets it

By STEVE KING

Ohio State’s most dangerous game of the regular season — a nighttime trip to Happy Valley to play talented and angry Penn State — isn’t the only Big Ten action I’ll be tracking on Saturday.

I’ll also be keeping an eye on a noon in-state rivalry contest between Michigan and Michigan State at Michigan Stadium
Why?

Other than to keep an eye on what the Buckeyes’ future opponents this season are doing, I also want to track the progress of new Spartans head coach Mel Tucker. He has strong ties to Ohio and the Browns. He grew up in the Cleveland area and played at Cleveland Heights High School and Wisconsin, then went into coaching, including being the co-defensive coordinator on Ohio State’s 2002 national championship team and later with the Browns as first defensive backs coach and then defensive coordinator. 

I got to know Tucker pretty well when he was with the Browns. You could just see that, with his coaching acumen and his ability to communicate with players,  he was destined for big things in coaching, and now here he is in charge of a Big Ten team. I know last Saturday’s opening-season loss to Ruthers and new head coach Greg Schiano, a former Ohio State assistant as well, was a bit of a disaster, especially offensively with seven turnovers, but I am confident that Tucker will do a good job there after he gets his program fully instituted.

Anyway, Tucker really caught my attention — and made me laugh out loud — this week when, during his Tuesday press conference, he returned to his Buckeyes roots and refused to address Michigan by name, calling it instead “the school down the road.” This, of course, is the same kind of tactic used by all Ohio State coaches, refusing to Michigan only as “the team up north (TTUN)” or “our rivals.” Nothing will stoke the fire of a longtime, bitter rivalry like the first-year head coach of one of the teams laying down a healthy dose of disrespect.

Perhaps from now on, Tucker can refer to TTUN as “TSDTR (the school down the road).”