Kirk Herbstreit and the rest of the ESPN College GameDay crew are visiting East Lansing, Michigan this weekend as No. 6 Michigan (7-0) will take on No. 8 Michigan State (7-0).
The winner of that game will be in a prime position to win challenge Ohio State for the Big Ten East Division crown. Presumably, it also puts the winner in a great position to qualify for the College Football Playoff.
Some people might have expected Jim Harbaugh and Michigan to be here but not as many expected Mel Tucker and Michigan State to be in this position. And Herbstreit heaped praise on the Spartans, calling them the “biggest surprise in the country.”
“I think Michigan State has been the biggest surprise in the country, not just in the Big Ten,” he said. “To think about where they were in Mel Tucker’s first year. Keep in mind, like a lot of other first-year coaches in 2020 – it’s a global pandemic, heavy restrictions, no spring football, cancel the season, oh no, now we’re going to have a season, and it’s just unprecedented what he went through his first year. They looked like, obviously, a severe work in progress.”
Herbstreit also says that if there’s any school that has taken advantage of the transfer portal, it’s Michigan State.
“They’ve upgraded and taken advantage of the 2021 way of doing business, and now they’ve got a confident football team,” he said.
Will the Spartans’ way of doing things in 2021 be enough to defeat their in-state rivals from Ann Arbor? We’ll find out on Saturday at Noon.
[ESPN]
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.