EAST LANSING, Mich. — Mel Tucker has agreed to a deal to become Michigan State's next head football, according to multiple reports Wednesday morning.
Sports Illustrated reports Tucker is expected to be officially named coach later this week.
No contract has not been signed, but both Tucker and MSU have reportedly agreed on a deal, the website said.
Tucker is currently the head coach at Colorado. He was interviewed last week by MSU, but he wrote on Twitter that he wasn't taking the job.
It is unclear why he pulled his name out of the running initially.
Tucker has Michigan State ties. He was a grad assistant at MSU from 1997-1998 under then-head coach Nick Saban. He was also part of the 2003 Ohio State staff with recently retired MSU head coach, Mark Dantonio. Tucker then worked his way up the coaching ranks, serving as the defensive coordinator at Georgia from 2016-2018, before he took the Colorado job last year.
Tucker has NFL experience as well. He was the interim head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars after their coach was fired at the end of the 2011 season. Tucker was also the defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears from 2013-2014.
In his lone season as the Buffaloes coach, Tucker's team went 5-7, as he tried to turn around a struggling Colorado football program.
A report in The Athletic said Michigan State would have to more than double Tucker's salary at Colorado, which was $2.7 million.
The news comes more than a day after Luke Fickell turned down the job and decided to stay as the head coach of Cincinnati.
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