I keep thinking there’s nothing a college athletic director can do any more that would surprise me, and I keep being proven wrong.
If all goes as planned, Mel Tucker will become the highest-paid coach in the Big Ten. And Michigan State will make a major show of strength that it plans to be a significant spender in college football in the next decade.
MSU is preparing a historic $95 million, 10-year contract extension for Tucker to remain with the Spartans, university sources confirmed to the Free Press on Wednesday. The 49-year-old Cleveland native is set to become among the highest-paid coaches in the country.
Alumni Mat Ishbia and Steve St. Andre will donate the private funding to the university for Tucker’s reworked contract, according to “Inside the Locker Room” podcast hosts Brian Mosallam, a former MSU Board of Trustee member, and MSU radio analyst Jason Strayhorn. University sources confirmed Ishbia and St. Andre as the donors for the new contract.
The deal surpasses the estimated $7 million contract of Penn State’s James Franklin that is the highest salary in the Big Ten in 2021, according to a USA TODAY salary database. Only former MSU coach Nick Saban at Alabama ($9.753 million) is making more this season than Tucker will under his reworked contract, according to the database.
You read that correctly. Mel Tucker, the current possessor of a lifetime head coaching record of 16-13 (11-6 at MSU), will soon be making more than his former boss, Kirby Smart. Not only has Mel not even sniffed a division title in his three seasons of coaching, he finished his first two seasons with losing records.
These people are fucking nuts.
I don’t need to tell you who Tucker’s agent is, do I? I also don’t need to tell you the sales pitch getting ready to be thrown Josh Brooks’ way soon by the same agent, do I?
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