College Kickoff HQ @CollegeKickoffHQ·13h ···

BREAKING: Michigan State has hired @NickMansour, 28, as head coach. Full program control — roster, recruiting, NIL, staff. He will call offense AND defense. He was in the Spartan Marching Band. He has one season as a high school head coach.

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Bryan Hollis @HollisCFB·12h ···

Some context on the Michigan State process, per people involved: MSU talked to the names you'd expect. Two of them got to a second conversation. Neither got to a third. Sources describe the Mansour interview as the only one where anybody in the room took notes for themselves.

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Bryan Hollis @HollisCFB·12h ···

Two more things people keep asking me: 1) Nick Sheridan (OC) and Joe Rossi (DC) are real hires with real authority. This is not a 28-year-old alone in a room. 2) The control language in the deal is broader than anything I've seen written down for a first-time college head coach.

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No Context Big Ten @NoContextB1G·12h ···

michigan state fired a head coach and replaced him with a guy who played trombone at the games where they fired the last guy

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Bryan Hollis @HollisCFB·12h ···

One more, since everybody's asking whether Michigan State "settled." He wasn't a late name. He was on a list somebody wrote in early December, way down under names you'd recognize, with a note next to it that read "we would never." Somebody kept moving him up. Nobody will tell me who, and that's the part I'd want to know.

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Madeline Kenney @MadKenneyFreep·11h ···

The national version of this is already "MSU panicked and hired a content guy." I've covered this athletic department for six years. Panic would be the fourth-best coordinator at a good program, $4.5 million, five years, no exit. They've done that twice in my time here. This is something else. It might be worse. It isn't that.

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Bryan Hollis @HollisCFB·11h ···

Michigan State’s starting quarterback is Leo Hannan. Redshirt freshman. He is QB1 going into Week 1 over Alessio Milivojevic, who held that offense together last year and who most people in that building assumed would keep the job. Mansour told Milivojevic himself, in a room, before a depth chart existed anywhere anyone could refresh it.

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Curt L. @bluewallburner·11h ···

He has not coached a college snap. Not one. And the first real decision anybody gets to see him make is to sit the guy who kept the whole thing standing when there was nothing to stand on. Bet on whoever you want in year three. Alessio earned year one.

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Bryan Hollis @HollisCFB·11h

Michigan State’s starting quarterback is Leo Hannan.

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Split Zone Numbers @sz_numbers·10h ···

Half of you spent last fall telling me that offense was fine because it stopped giving the ball away. It was not fine. It was survivable. Survivable is a floor. You can live on a floor for a decade and never once find out where the ceiling was.

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Bryan Hollis @HollisCFB·11h

Michigan State’s starting quarterback is Leo Hannan.

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Urban Meyer @CoachUrbanMeyer·11h ···

Bad programs dress desperation as vision. That's all this is. You don't get to skip twenty years of work because you're good in a room. Michigan State didn't hire a head coach. They hired a story.

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Replying to @CoachUrbanMeyer

Spartan Tailgate @SpartanTailgate·11h ···

the guy who quit two jobs in the middle of the night has notes on commitment, incredible

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Replying to @SpartanTailgate and @CoachUrbanMeyer

Doug K. @badtakefactory·10h ···

cope. he's 3 national titles you're 3 wins

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Ray Tolliver @47Sweep·11h ···

Eleven years playing, twelve coaching. He has never stood in a locker room at 11:40 on a Saturday night after you lose one you had. There's no clip of that. There's no board for it. Call me when he's blocked somebody.

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Replying to @47Sweep

Dorian Pace @DPace_58·11h ···

Four years in East Lansing. Eight position coaches. Six of them had been in that locker room at 11:40 on a Saturday. Every one of them lied to me about something. Not one time did the résumé tell me which ones would.

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Presser Clips @PresserClips·11h ···

"Nobody has to believe this today. I'd be a little worried about anybody who did." That's how he opened. Not a thank you. Not a mission statement. That.

Michigan State · Introductory

"Nobody has to believe this today"

▶

0:47

clipped from the full 38:04 press conference

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Replying to @PresserClips

Nina S. @boxscorecoward·10h ···

I have watched an unhealthy number of introductory press conferences in my life. That's the best one I've heard. It isn't close. Now go win four games so I don't have to look at this post again.

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Replying to @boxscorecoward and @PresserClips

Dale R. @SpartanDad1978·10h ···

a communications professional communicated well. that's the entire news story. congratulations to all of you for being sold something by a man whose job was selling things

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Bill Prieskorn @PrieskornFB·10h ···

24 years running a program in this state. Nothing against the young man, I've never met him. But you find out what a program is the year everything breaks at once. Two transfers, a kid in real trouble, a parent in your office Monday, your best assistant gone in February. He's had one of those years. One. At a high school. In Brooklyn.

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Renee A. @lateforthebus·10h ···

hour one of the band jokes: funny. hour nine: I am watching grown men who have never carried anything heavier than a phone across a parking lot type the word trombone at each other for engagement we get it. you found the noun.

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Presser Clips @PresserClips·9h ···

Michigan State’s new head coach opening his first press conference: “I’m twenty-eight. My coaching résumé fits on a Post-it. I marched in the band that plays in the stadium I now work in.” He said the quiet part before anyone could ask it.

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Joel Klatt @joelklatt·10h ···

I don't know if this works. Nobody does. But the reaction has been about his age and his instrument and not one word about what he actually plans to do with a football team, and that's a lazy day for all of us.

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No Context Big Ten @NoContextB1G·12h

michigan state fired a head coach and replaced him with a guy who played trombone at the games where they fired the last guy

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Brady Quinn @BradyQuinn·10h ···

Forget the age. Calling both sides is the part I can't get past. Thursday night your quarterback is a redshirt freshman who needs his head coach on the headset walking him through a look he's never seen. Where is that guy? He's on the other sideline fixing a checkdown in the run fits. Somebody's getting the leftovers.

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Aaron Voss @tapegrinder·10h ···

People keep asking what his football actually looks like. It's been public for six years, for free, with his name on it. Here's the 2023 one on a quarterback everybody had in the fourth round. He wasn't right about all of it. He was right about the part that decided the guy's career, and he showed the work, which almost nobody in this business does.

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Nick Mansour @NickMansour·Mar 2023

The picks aren't a decision problem, they're a footwork problem, and footwork is coachable. Watch the back foot on all six. Same place every time. Nobody's fixing it because everybody's arguing about his brain. 1/14

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Coverage Shells @coverageshells·9h ···

Everybody's yelling about a trombone so nobody read the actual thing he said. "Complex for opponents. Simple for us." That's not a slogan, it's a workload argument. Every call is supposed to look like four calls to the guys across from you and one call to your own guys. Formation, motion, personnel, spacing. Same concept wearing different clothes.

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Coverage Shells @coverageshells·9h ···

The 4-2-5 with simulated pressure is the same idea pointed the other way. Five DBs, two backers, and the protection has to guess which four are coming. You get the picture of pressure without paying the bill for it. Cost: you're stopping the run with lighter bodies. Gap discipline or you die. That's a personnel question and Michigan State has not answered it, and I'd be lying if I said the tape from last year suggested they can.

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Replying to @coverageshells

Vince M. @throwawayBigTenGuy·8h ···

Coached in this league nine years. The scheme has never been the hard part. The hard part is teaching it to a second-team walk-on on a Tuesday when he's got a midterm, while also running a program, while also calling the other side of the ball on Saturday. Draw whatever you want in August. August is undefeated.

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Split Zone Numbers @sz_numbers·9h ···

The roster read isn't the crazy part of this. That linebacker room graded top-25 nationally in run-fit success last year on a four-win team. The interior offensive line was bottom-15 in pressure allowed. Building a defense that leans on the backers and an offense that never asks that interior to hold up for three full seconds is the obvious move. It's only radical because nobody there made it.

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Aaron Voss @tapegrinder·9h ···

Everything public on both quarterbacks is practice clips and one spring session, so hold this loosely. Alessio plays like a man protecting a lead he doesn’t have yet. On time, off the back foot when he has to be, rarely puts the offense somewhere it can’t get out of. Leo throws things that shouldn’t be there. Some of them aren’t. That’s the trade, and in the offense Mansour described at the podium, the second guy is the one who takes a Saturday away from somebody.

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Replying to @tapegrinder

Nick T. @halftimeadjust·9h ···

You are describing eleven throws in shorts. I don’t think you’re wrong. I think nobody outside that building has seen enough of either one to be this loud, and that includes everybody who is loud in the other direction.

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Curtis Nally @sundayscoutsheet·9h ···

Small confession from a guy who does this for money: I've had his board open on a second monitor every April since 2021. Not because it beat mine. Because he graded the guys I ran out of time for, and he never once quietly deleted a miss. That's worth something. It is also not head coaching and I'd never pretend it was.

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Urban Meyer @CoachUrbanMeyer·9h ···

PowerPoint is not program building. I've watched a hundred guys present. Slides don't tackle. Slides don't sit in a living room in Warren at 9pm and look a mother in the eye. Slides don't hold a 19-year-old accountable in January when it's dark at 5 o'clock and nobody's clapping.

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Urban Meyer @CoachUrbanMeyer·9h ···

Total control. Roster, staff, money, both sides of the ball, at 28. He has never fired a friend. Never taken a scholarship back from a kid he recruited into a family's living room. Never sat across a table from a mother and told her the truth about her son's playing time. Those days are what make a head coach, and not one of them is on his résumé, because he hasn't had one yet. Michigan State didn't take a swing. They shut their eyes.

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Blue Blood Banter @BlueBloodBanter·9h ···

us: Bryce Underwood them: a trombone and they wonder why we don't call it a rivalry

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Kelsey in GR @KelseyInGR·8h ···

ok so nobody was going to mention that the new coach looks like that. fine. I’ll be the one.

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Ryan V. @AnnArborGuest·9h ···

November 7th in the Big House is going to be the single funniest afternoon of my life and I'm including my wedding, which was also very funny

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Grant H. @scarletwatch·9h ···

genuine question from Columbus: am I supposed to have a take on this. I've now been sent four columns about it. we don't play them. going back to the two deep thread.

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Kevin Doyle @fourhorsemenkev·9h ···

everyone's arguing about whether he can coach and I just realized our third game is now the most-watched 12:30 kickoff in September, because a 28-year-old is going to walk into our stadium and either look completely insane or look like where this whole sport is going no notes. bring him.

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Marissa L. @bloomingtonbylines·9h ···

a man said on national television that hiring Cignetti was "a fine decision for a MAC school." there is a trophy in a case forty minutes from where I'm sitting. I'm not telling you it'll work for them. I'm telling you every account dunking today was in my mentions three years ago and not one of them has apologized.

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Blue Blood Banter @BlueBloodBanter·9h ···

they benched the one guy over there who was reliably fine. for a redshirt freshman. on purpose. because of upside nobody fix this. do not let a single adult in that building fix this. we have a five star, you have a hypothesis

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Barstool Michigan @BarstoolUM·9h ···

we have a five star quarterback they have a guy who knows what a trombone goes for used november 7. bring the horns.

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DK

Deb K. @grandriverghost·8h ···

Fine, use the band as the punchline. We've heard worse from an entire stadium in Columbus at 11am. But he stood on a practice field at 6:45 in February for four years for no money, no playing time and no scholarship, in a group where being three seconds late means 300 people run again because of you. Whatever that is, "soft" isn't the word.

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Terry V. @UPLefty·8h ···

my daughter played mellophone next to him for two years. her entire scouting report, verbatim: "he was always late and he always knew the part." do with that what you want, I've been staring at it since 5pm

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Alison Grier @agrier_music·8h ···

I direct a band program. Three hundred people, one downbeat, outdoors, memorized, while moving. You cannot fake it and nobody can carry you through it. Every October somebody explains to me that it isn't a sport. Fine. It's a discipline, and today has made it very clear how many of you have never been inside one.

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Ray Tolliver @47Sweep·8h ···

Kid takes over a huddle that’s coming apart, keeps it upright all season, never once opens his mouth about it in public. His reward is a nineteen-year-old taking the first rep in August. Call it a ceiling if it makes you feel modern. Where I come from you call it a message, and everybody in that room heard it whether it was aimed at them or not.

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DP

Replying to @47Sweep

Dorian Pace @DPace_58·8h ···

I got beat out by a freshman once. I remember the week, and I remember exactly how I found out, which was standing in a hallway looking at a sheet of paper with everybody else. The decision isn’t the wound. Finding out sideways is the wound. He got told by the head coach in a room before any of us had it. That is worth more than this timeline thinks it is.

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Sam Tallman @LansingSportsDad·8h ···

my wife has watched this press conference four times and has no opinion on the quarterback situation

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Nick T. @halftimeadjust·8h ···

if he goes 4-8 they'll say a marching band ruined michigan state football. if he goes 10-2 they'll say a marching band saved it. no other coach in america gets handed an entire mythology in week zero. he hasn't run a practice.

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Sam Tallman @LansingSportsDad·8h ···

41 years. Perles, Saban leaving, Williams, Smith, Dantonio's last three, Tucker, all of it. I have never once felt what I felt at 4:15 this afternoon, which is nothing. I felt nothing. I just went and got the mail.

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East Lansing After Dark @EastLansingAfterDark·8h ···

THE BAND HAS TAKEN OVER THE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT FIRST THE HORNS. THEN THE BUILDING. TOMORROW THE BIG TEN.

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MFL

Matt from Lansing @GrandRiverLate·7h ···

Alessio ran that locker room in a year when there wasn’t a voice in the building anybody trusted. Ran workouts nobody made him run. Talked guys into staying one more week at a time. That kid deserved better than a press release.

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Replying to @GrandRiverLate

Madeline Kenney @MadKenneyFreep·7h ···

No argument on the first part. On the last line: it wasn’t a press release. He was told by the head coach, face to face, before anyone in my job had a depth chart. I asked that question directly because I expected a softer answer and I would have written it if I’d gotten one. Hate the decision all you want. That detail is real.

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Eva Bradley @StateLineCFB·7h ···

Unpopular in my mentions but: the staff sheet is the interesting document, not the résumé. Sheridan running the QB teaching week to week and Rossi with actual authority on defense is not a kid playing house. Whether that holds in October is a different question.

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Brian K. @basicallyBrian·7h ···

To be clear: my problem is not the 28-year-old. My problem is that the same building that took eight months to fire a man it had already decided to fire got this done in eleven days, and now wants me to call that decisiveness. Same people. Same room. Different answer. Nobody has explained the difference and nobody will.

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Dana W. @rivermistgreen·7h ···

Say whatever you want about the résumé. He is the first person to stand at that podium in ten years and not talk to us like we're a public relations problem to be managed. I have been lied to by absolute professionals at this school. Today was different. I'm allowed to notice that without being called a mark.

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Rich M. @halfempty1979·7h ···

every single one of you swearing you "watched the tape" watched forty seven seconds of a man talking at a podium. you didn't watch tape. you watched a commercial. you're in the commercial.

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Kelsey in GR @KelseyInGR·7h ···

I watched the full 38 minutes. Twice. I made a spreadsheet. I am not okay. But I did watch it.

RM

Rich M. @halfempty1979

every single one of you swearing you "watched the tape" watched forty seven seconds of a man talking at a podium. you didn't watch tape. you watched a commercial. you're in the commercial.

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Mike D. @midmichiganmike·7h ···

he's 28. Cam Edwards' older brother is 29. the head coach of Michigan State is younger than the big brother of his own starting running back. I'm not making a point. I'm just saying it out loud so I'm not alone in it.

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Josh in Kzoo @sleepy_badger·7h ···

did the math: when he was a junior in the marching band, this year's fifth-year seniors were in seventh grade that's the post. I'm going to go lie down on the floor now

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Andrew in Saginaw @andrewinsaginaw·7h ···

local note nobody nationally will care about: he graduated high school in the same class as Chris Piwowarczyk's sister. Piwowarczyk is on the roster right now. six grades between the head coach and a linebacker he's about to coach. the Flint area is very small and this is very funny to maybe two hundred of us

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Pete R. @holtjunction·7h ···

Sincere question for everybody doing the tribute posts. What did last season actually look like to you? Because I watched a quarterback be very good at not losing us games we were already losing, and somewhere in the last eight hours that turned into a body of work.

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KG

Replying to @holtjunction

Kelsey in GR @KelseyInGR·7h ···

He’s twenty years old. He held a job nobody sane wanted, at a school that was actively falling over, for people who kept leaving. Read your post again out loud and see how it sounds in your own voice.

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run_the_dang_ball @rundangball·7h ···

genuinely begging this fanbase to think about the interior offensive line for five consecutive minutes

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Chris Piwowarczyk @Piwo_44·7h ···

6am. new board in the room. we'll see 🤝

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Tanya Hall @proudmomof11·7h ···

My son has had three head coaches in four years at this university. Three. Do you know what that does to a 21-year-old's belief that anybody means what they say to him? I've stopped asking for wins. I would like this one to still be there when my son walks in May. That's the whole prayer.

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100.9 The Mitt @1009TheMitt·7h ···

"THIS IS MICHIGAN STATE FOOTBALL. NOT A STARTUP INCUBATOR." Dave did not take a breath for four minutes and eleven seconds. 🎧

100.9 The Mitt · Afternoon Drive

"Not A Startup Incubator"

▶

4:11

1009themitt.com · Dave & Marcus, weekdays 3–6

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Nina S. @boxscorecoward·6h ···

Third time today somebody handed this man a clean opening to make Alessio the reason for something, and he wouldn’t take it. Not at the podium, not on the radio, not on the question that was basically pre-written for him. Whatever else turns out to be true about the hire, he has not once let that kid be the loser of this story.

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Replying to @boxscorecoward

Nathan D. @notyourdad1978·6h ···

He ran communications for a living. Speaking generously about the person you just demoted is the entry-level module of that job. You are grading a professional on the single thing he has ever actually done professionally.

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Curtis Deane @MarcusOnTheMitt·6h ···

for the record I said "incubator" is a dumb word and then he said it eleven more times I can see the path here. I've watched the QB stuff. I just don't trust Michigan State to be the school that found the loophole. Those are two different sentences and my phone won't let me have both.

100.9 The Mitt @1009TheMitt

"THIS IS MICHIGAN STATE FOOTBALL. NOT A STARTUP INCUBATOR." Dave did not take a breath for four minutes and eleven seconds. 🎧

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Old Town Mike @oldtownlager·6h ···

my father in law has now called me twice to say the word incubator at me and hang up

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Helmet Scout @HelmetScout·6h ···

Nothing to report and nothing worth reporting until the calendar opens, so treat this as a question I don’t have an answer to. If you’re a quarterback in the 2027 class looking at Michigan State this morning, which sentence hits harder: he’ll play a freshman, or he’ll bench the guy who did everything right? Those are the same sentence. I’ve had high school coaches argue it to me both ways since lunch.

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DeShawn Ivey @DIvey_8·6h ···

watched the press conference like everybody else 👀 phone been going all day. blessed. back to work Monday #AGTG

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Pat Ozuna @LateWindowCFB·6h ···

Miami's interior line against that Notre Dame front on Sunday night is a genuinely unsolvable problem and I cannot get one person to discuss it with me. Everybody's doing bits about a horn.

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B1G Film Room @B1GFilmRoom·6h ···

Clipped the whole presser. Watch the Milivojevic answer at 14:20. He does not make one quarterback sound like a consolation prize, he does not promise anybody anything, and he doesn't do the thing where he pretends the depth chart is a mystery. "Nobody has to believe this today."

Michigan State · Introductory

Nick Mansour, full press conference

▶

38:04

Recorded at the Skandalaris Center, East Lansing

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Spartan Dad @SpartanDad1978·5h ···

There it is. That’s the thing I was afraid of and couldn’t say yesterday without sounding like a crank. A twenty-eight-year-old walks in and the first thing he does is decide he sees something in a kid that the people who spent an entire season coaching this team didn’t see. That isn’t vision. That’s a man who has never once been wrong where anybody could watch.

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Replying to @B1GFilmRoom

Tony C. @secondandnine·5h ···

A GOOD PRESS CONFERENCE HAS NEVER WON A FOOTBALL GAME. He is a PR guy. That's it. That's the whole thing.

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Replying to @secondandnine and @B1GFilmRoom

Kelsey in GR @KelseyInGR·5h ···

he's a PR guy. that IS the job. you have to sell 105 kids, their mothers, 40 assistants, a booster room and a Board of Trustees on the same idea at the same time every week. Dantonio's last two years the building couldn't sell anybody on anything.

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Joel Klatt @joelklatt·5h ···

Here's what I keep chewing on. Calling both sides is the first objection everybody reaches for, and it should be. But he is now the only head coach in this conference who cannot walk into a press conference in October and quietly hang it on a coordinator. He built it that way on purpose. I genuinely don't know if that's brave or if it's a guy who hasn't been hit yet. We're going to find out embarrassingly fast.

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Barstool MSU @BarstoolMSU·5h ···

unfortunately i watched his 40 minute quarterback video at 2am and i am now a scheme guy i do not know what a mesh point is. i know it matters. we are so back and also probably 4-8

Urban Meyer @CoachUrbanMeyer

PowerPoint is not program building. I've watched a hundred guys present. Slides don't tackle...

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Nick Mansour @NickMansour·5h ···

A lot of people spent today telling Michigan State fans how to feel about this. Nobody has to believe it today. To our players: you didn't pick this news cycle and you don't owe anybody an answer for it. That part's mine. See you at 6.

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CE

Replying to @NickMansour

Cam Edwards @CamEdwards_·5h ···

6 is 6 💚

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GS

Replying to @NickMansour

Greg S. @ToledoRocketThrowaway·5h ···

"that part's mine" is a great sentence. so is "I'll have the pot roast." one of them gets tested on Saturdays

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Curt L. @bluewallburner·5h ···

"Clarity before slogans" is itself a slogan. An entire fanbase is being walked around a parking lot by a 28-year-old who has never had a bad Tuesday in this job, and you're applauding because the man used a semicolon out loud. This is what media training is FOR. You are the product.

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Eva Bradley @StateLineCFB·5h ···

"Not a startup incubator" is a slogan. "PowerPoint doesn't tackle" is a slogan. Everyone yelling about this hire is doing a bit, including you, including me. Difference is one of them has to put a two-deep on grass in eight days.

CL

Curt L. @bluewallburner

"Clarity before slogans" is itself a slogan. An entire fanbase is being walked around a parking lot by a 28-year-old who has never had a bad Tuesday in this job...

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Shannon K. @DetroitLawDuck·4h ···

The line that landed for me wasn't football. It was "Michigan State doesn't get to ask for trust. It has to earn it." Three presidents. A board that leaks to the press faster than it talks to itself. Years of this school failing people and calling it a process. Nobody employed there has said that plainly in a decade and he said it in the first four minutes without being asked.

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247Sports Michigan State @247MSU·4h ···

BROOKS: The thing Michigan State people should sit with isn't his age. It's that three separate people involved in this search told me the school could not get a serious veteran candidate to a third conversation. Not wouldn't pay him. Couldn't get him in the room a third time. That's the story under the story, and nobody on that campus wants it said out loud.

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GL

Gordy L. @sixteenacres·4h ···

called my brother at 4:30 and said this is the dumbest thing this school has ever done and it has done a lot of dumb things called him back at 9 and said don't tell anybody I said this. he said what. I said I liked him. he hung up on me.

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Urban Meyer @CoachUrbanMeyer·5h ···

Everybody loves a young genius until November. Ask me how I know. Ask anybody who's been in that seat when it turns. It always turns. And when it does, the people who hired you go quiet and the 28-year-old is standing there by himself.

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Nick Saban @NickSaban·5h ···

Knowing football and running a program are two different jobs. I've seen brilliant football people fail because they couldn't build the organization around them — the discipline, the development, the consistency of message when you lose. That's what I'd watch at Michigan State. Not the play calls.

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Denny Vaughan @vaughan_ol·5h ···

Put him in a room and ask him to install a protection against a three-man front with a late walk-up nickel. Count the words he uses. That's the test. It has always been the test. Everything else is a podcast.

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Replying to @vaughan_ol

Aaron Voss @tapegrinder·5h ···

He did that. On camera. Eleven minutes, for free, on a Bears protection bust in 2022. You can go watch it, which I understand carries the risk of having a different opinion by dinner.

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Ann Arbor Guest @BlueBloodBanter·6h ···

the mustache is working and I hate that I typed that. deleting my account. go blue.

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Ray Colletti @colletti_scout·5h ···

Everyone keeps saying "total control" like it's a vanity clause somebody's agent snuck in. It's the GM model showing up in college about four years late. Every NFL building on earth separates who acquires the players from who coaches them and then forces those two people to argue in a room. Michigan State put both hats on one head. That's the aggressive part. Not the structure — the headcount.

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MP

Midwest Portal @MidwestPortal·5h ···

It isn't visionary and it isn't malpractice. It's untested, and "untested" is carrying a lot of weight in a sport where staffs turn over 40% a year. The real risk isn't that he's wrong about a player. Everyone's wrong about players. It's that when he is, there is nobody in that building whose actual job description is telling him so.

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Sedrick Toney @SedToney_MSU·5h ···

Don’t know either of these kids personally. Do still talk to six or seven guys in that program, and every one of them says the same thing about Alessio without being asked, which almost never happens with anybody. The depth chart says what it says. That room is not turning on him. If anything it goes the other direction, and a young quarterback learning to lead a group that already loves somebody else is the actual hard part of this fall. Nobody on here is talking about that part.

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HB

Hallie Brandt @boardroomscout·5h ···

What I keep hearing from people around this search, and nobody will put a name on it: the trustees didn't pick him. They ran out of ways to say no. Two of them learned the number had been agreed to from a group text. That's not a conspiracy. That's just how that board has operated for ten years, and it's the same reason the last three of these went the way they went.

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DS

Dave Sarratore @DaveOnTheMitt·5h ···

CZAR. They gave a 28 YEAR OLD the title of CZAR. Do you know what happened to the last czar? I'm not going to explain it to you. Look it up. I'll wait. 3-6 on the phones.

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MD

Replying to @DaveOnTheMitt

Curtis Deane @MarcusOnTheMitt·5h ···

nobody gave him the title of czar. a columnist typed the word czar and you read it out loud on the air nine times and now it's a title

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OK

Owen K. @nittanyledger·4h ···

Franklin is at Virginia Tech. We have a head coach who won't say the word rebuild out loud and a schedule that doesn't care. And my entire timeline has decided Michigan State is the interesting program in this league. Fine. Great. I hope the trombone wins ten.

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BC

Promoted

Bergman Chevrolet @BergmanChevyOkemos ···

GREEN & WHITE SALES EVENT 🏈 0.9% APR on all 2026 Silverado models through Labor Day. Ask for Denny. Mention the Spartans and he'll pretend to know what's going on too.

BERGMAN CHEVROLET · OKEMOS, MI

bergmanchevy.com

0.9% APR Green & White Event

Mid-Michigan's #1 volume dealer since 2011

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Joel Klatt @joelklatt·4h ···

Spent an hour last night on his old evaluation work because I wanted to know if there was anything under it. There is. The man has a real theory about simplifying the field for a young quarterback — formation, motion, spacing, sequencing — and he can teach it out loud, which is rarer than people think. Does that translate to a Tuesday practice in Week 9? No idea. But there's a there there.

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JM

Jae McGinnis @zoneleft42·4h ···

nobody wants to hear this but the 4-2-5 stuff with Tre Bell moving to the slot is the first Michigan State defensive idea in six years that sounds like it came from watching football instead of from a coaching tree

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Todd R. @maizefloor·4h ···

we spent a year and a number I will not type on the best quarterback in the country. they spent eleven days on a guy who reviews quarterbacks. this is the funniest possible version of this rivalry and I intend to enjoy every second of it right up until the exact moment it stops being funny, which knowing them will be a Saturday in November with no warning

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DW

Drew W. @VictorsValiant26·4h ···

"first defensive idea in six years" buddy. we have a five star. you have a diagram.

JM

Jae McGinnis @zoneleft42

nobody wants to hear this but the 4-2-5 stuff with Tre Bell moving to the slot is the first Michigan State defensive idea in six years that sounds like it came from watching football instead of from a coaching tree

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Pete B. @AnnArborGuest2·3h ···

honestly? kind of rooting for it. the rivalry has been miserable to watch and I'd like them to be good again so beating them means something

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Aisha P. @parkingLotC·3h ···

i am begging this website. one post. one single post about the interior line, the linebackers, the schedule, a hot dog, anything we are going to do this about two quarterbacks for eleven consecutive days and neither of them has taken a snap for this coaching staff

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Deb A. @ELdorm2009·3h ···

woke up thinking about the fact that a man born in 1998 has final say on our defensive personnel, and then thought about the fact that I have final say on nothing, and I am 44, and then I thought about that for a full hour

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Nick P. @HelmetScout·3h ···

Not naming anybody and not asking anybody about anything, it's a dead period for me until next week. But I called four Michigan high school coaches this afternoon just to take the temperature and I'll say this: not one of them laughed. Three said some version of "at least he'll answer the phone himself."

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Midwest Portal @MidwestPortal·2h ···

The question in recruiting isn't whether a 17-year-old thinks he's cool. Kids like new. The question every position coach in the country will get asked in a living room this fall is "will he still be there when my son is a junior," and Michigan State has no good answer to that yet.

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The State News @thesnews·7h ···

Before he ran the football program, he marched in it. Members of the Spartan Marching Band say the new head coach still knows the drill counts.

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Transfer Portal Guy @TransferPortalGuy·2h ···

Everyone's arguing about the head coach. Marcus Whitman running personnel is the hire I'd actually bet on. That guy has been publicly right about undervalued players for years with no job to protect. Now he has a board and a budget.

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Joel Klatt @joelklatt·2h ···

The age is being reported as one joke and it's actually two separate facts. He's young enough that a locker room will have him figured out in about a week. Those rooms are ruthless and they are never wrong about this. He's also young enough that if they do buy, they'll follow him harder than they'd follow a 55-year-old with a plaque. Both of those are live right now. We'll know which one by the third week of September.

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DC

Dani CFB @CFBWatchParty·2h ···

Sunday night. #3 Notre Dame. #6 Miami. Primetime, nothing else on, everybody in the country watching the same game. I've been waiting on this since January and my timeline is full of a marching band. Priorities are broken.

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Tomás M. @TheBigTenMap·2h ···

Media poll, top of the league, unchanged and boring: Ohio State 1, Oregon 2, and it's a real gap to 3. Day has the roster and Lanning has the speed and everybody else is arguing about coaching hires because that's the only lever they've got left.

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Caleb R. @B1GAfterHours·1h ···

Penn State fans in my mentions telling me Michigan State is a circus. You fired James Franklin, he's at Virginia Tech, you have an interim-shaped head coach and a fanbase that argues about it hourly. Everybody's a circus. Some of you just have nicer tents.

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SD

Saturday Dirt @SaturdayDirt·1h ···

Reminder that Indiana won a national championship with a coach nobody outside the MAC could pick out of a lineup four years earlier. The "that could never work" crowd has a bad recent record.

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Hoosier Gospel @candlestick_IU·1h ···

every school in this league has an excuse and we didn't have one either. good luck to them genuinely. Cignetti would say something meaner but he's earned it and I haven't

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Jenna W. @ThirdAndCampus·1h ···

looked up flights to LA for the UCLA game out of curiosity and I need everyone in the Big Ten office to know that $611 round trip in October to watch a football game at 9pm my time is not a conference, it's a hostage situation

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Urban Meyer @CoachUrbanMeyer·58m ···

Cignetti had been a head coach for sixteen years and won everywhere they let him do it. That is not the same thing and every person typing this today knows it isn't. Stop borrowing somebody else's program to defend a bad process.

SD

Saturday Dirt @SaturdayDirt

Reminder that Indiana won a national championship with a coach nobody outside the MAC could pick out of a lineup four years earlier. The "that could never work" crowd has a bad recent record.

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Eva Bradley @StateLineCFB·52m ···

Alessio hasn’t posted since Tuesday. No cryptic story, no black square, no quote graphic. Nothing. Half this timeline has decided that means he’s furious and the other half has decided it means he’s fine. Both groups are reading their own mood into an account that hasn’t moved.

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Lot C Guy @parkingLotC·52m ···

new coach, same email from parking services telling me my Lot C pass went up $40 and the shuttle now stops at a different corner. some things survive every regime

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AM

Angie M. @ELafterdark·44m ···

unrelated to anything happening today: bring back the plain white helmets. no chrome. no gradient. no script. white helmet, green stripe, done. that's my entire platform

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GT

Greg T. @notyourdad1978·38m ···

group chat has produced 412 messages and zero information since 4pm

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Marcy B. @SpartanTailgateCrew·33m ···

we're still doing the pig roast for the home opener. I don't care who the coach is, I bought the pig in March

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Sedrick Toney @SedToney_MSU·31m ···

Played for Dantonio. 2015 group. Nobody outside that building knows what makes a team, and everybody outside that building is certain. So I'll just say this: I got a text at 9:40 tonight from a man I've never met, and he used a nickname I got off one play I ran in 2014. He did homework on a guy who's been retired six years. Make of it whatever you want.

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TA

Stephen Brooks @brooks_theathletic·29m ···

Madeline Kenney and I spent two weeks on how this actually happened. Nine people in and around the search, most of them talking on background, and every one of them reached for the same word to explain it. None of them like the word.

THE ATHLETIC · MICHIGAN STATE

theathletic.com

Nobody Saw This Coming

Inside the search that ended with a 28-year-old former band member running Michigan State football.

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Paper Bag Spartan @paperbagSpartan·21m ···

I took the bag off in 2015. Put it back on in 2023. Took it off for the press conference. It is now 11pm and I am holding the bag in my hands looking at it

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Renee A. @lateforthebus·18m ···

My son plays quarterback at a school none of you have heard of. He got benched in October and he has never really talked to me about it since. The line that got me today was “he didn’t lose this job by being bad at it.” I don’t have a rooting interest in any of this. I just wanted somebody to say that sentence to my kid two years ago.

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Sam Tallman @LansingSportsDad·18m ···

This afternoon I said I felt nothing. It's 11:40 and I have watched the 14:20 answer four times. I don't know what that means. My wife says it means I'm going to be insufferable in September. She's right. She's always right. I'm going to be insufferable in September.

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Bryan Hollis @HollisCFB·16m ···

Last one tonight. Two Big Ten head coaches texted me about this hire today. Neither made a joke, which surprised me. Both asked the same question, almost word for word: who tells him no. I don't have an answer. Nobody at Michigan State I've asked has one either, and I've asked six people.

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Matt from Lansing @GrandRiverLate·14m ···

I've decided I'm not having an emotion about this until Week 1. That was nine hours ago. I have since watched the entire press conference twice, read a depth chart that does not exist yet, and argued with a man in Ohio about a linebacker room.

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Matt from Lansing @GrandRiverLate·11m ···

Bye week. There is no game. There is nothing to look at for eight more days. Michigan State has never made a bye week feel this long and we've had some real ones.

Show this thread

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Sara P. @cornfieldneutral·4m ···

neutral observer here, no dog in it: this is the only hire in the sport where I genuinely cannot tell you what the over/under on wins should be. everyone else I could guess within one. that alone is going to make me watch a Grambling State game

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