Michigan State Head Coach Mel Tucker: "They Get Up On You And Get The Crowd Into It And It's A Wrap"

Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker had to know his team was in for a fight against Ohio State in the Shoe but he likely didn't expect the 56-7 beat down Ryan Day's squad dished out.

Always an honest interview, Tucker pointed to Ohio State's talent advantage and his own team's failure to execute, among other things, during his post game comments.

"We gotta give Ohio State a lot of credit. That's a very talented team. In all three phases, they outplayed us. They beat us. They were the much better team today. That was obvious."

On why Ohio State was the truth and able to play the way they did, Tucker offered, "We were not able to eliminate the explosiveness on defense and we weren't able to sustain drives on offense."

Lamenting the missed field goal and fumble on back-to-back possessions early in the first quarter and how it impacted what his offense was doing, Tucker knew that was big factor in things getting out of hand. "We've seen these guys on film jump out on people early. We knew we couldn't allow that to happen because they can score quickly. They get up on you and get the crowd into it and then it's a wrap."

"We got behind early against a good team and then at that point, it's' kind of insurmountable."

"They get up on you and get the crowd into it and then it's a wrap." – Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker

Asked about what Ohio State did even better today than he expected, Tucker said his staff had a ton of film on the Buckeyes and nothing they did from a play design perspective was an issue, it was more about how they out-executed his team. "From a coaching standpoint, there weren't any surprises out there in terms of what we saw. It was just a matter of they out-executed us and they won some one-on-ones. A lot of times it does come down to one-on-one matchups and they won those."

On what's next for his team, "We have to get as healthy as we possibly can and get back on track and get ready to go again. I told them, I said listen, you don't have to go the media and say 'it was my fault', you don't gotta do that. Let's give Ohio State credit. They outplayed us, we didn't do what we needed to do, and we need to get better and move on."

"I told them, I don't want to hear a word on the bus or on the plane. We got a 38 minute plane flight so there's nothing to talk about. Let's get showered up, get dressed, get the heck outta here and get back to East Lansing and get back to work. We gotta be able to do that and guys who can't will be confronted. If you're in this game long enough, you're going to have days like this."

Asked about Michigan State's troubles in trying to beat Ohio State, Tucker made it clear on the formula to flip the script. "We're always disappointed when we don't get execution but recruiting is where we're going to close the gap. We need more depth and we need more guys that can win one-on-one and so, I think that's obvious. And I don't think that's news, actually, if anybody's really paying attention. So, it's execution obviously and then we're going to recruit like crazy like we've been doing and we're going to continue to do that. We were built to recruit at a high level."