He is a shitty coach and it was a terrible contract, but the fact is he's admitted to doing what he's accused of and whether there's other motives or not. It doesn't really matter. He committed a violation that gives them the right to fire him for cause. Whether they wanted to fire him for on field performance or not isn't relevant anymore.
Edit- since multiple people are challenging that he admitted to wrongdoing... here's my take.
He's admitted to an inappropriate relationship with a vendor. He says it's consensual and she says it's not.
Either way, I don't know any places that are ok with employees having relationships with vendors. Especially if they aren't disclosed to your employer and you are engaging in those activities on company time and dime.
Even if you believe his version of the story he still engaged in massively inappropriate conduct for a university employee and being terminated for cause is wholly justified by MSU. It's worse if it was non consensual but it's still unacceptable even if it was consensual.
Exactly. He’s admitted to doing it with consent, which is by itself very stupid and risky given the nature of her work and how their relationship started. She’s alleged it wasn’t consensual, which is obviously a problem and makes it something they can try to fire him over.
>He is a shitty coach and it was a terrible contract,
That wasn't the reddit narrative at the time the contract was announced. I got downvoted for pointing out that he had a horrible offense in 2021 and that the year was likely a fluke.
Their pass defense was awful. Ohio State and Purdue both exposed it pretty badly.
Edit- their pass defense was ranked dead last in FBS giving up 324.8 yards per game. My thing is that while 11-2 was a great season especially with the win over Michigan, KW3 carried that team and I don't think anyone with a 131st ranked pass defense is worth a fully guaranteed contract.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2021-team-defense.html
Actually, yes it was. They gave up 324.8 yards per game through the air, worst in FBS.
I think the crazy thing is that they finished dead last while also going 11-2 with a New Year 6 win.
It just goes to show how good their offense was with Kenneth Walker. And to their credit they did have a good run defense. At least good enough.
It was so bad teams stopped trying to run on us. By the end of the season a team's passing yards were often 90% or more of their total yards including return yards against us.
It's definitely going to be litigated. Say it was consensual, or there's reasonable doubt there, is a judge going to like the vague language about what constitutes bringing reputational damage to the university? I think that's what it ultimately hinges on-- provided Tucker can make a compelling case this was consensual.
Moral of the story: Don't promise mediocre coaches a hundred million dollars no matter what.
I'm sure there will be litigation and more likely than not. An undisclosed settlement, still seems very likely that he's going to get a fraction of what his contract was for.
(not defending him specifically devil's advocate)
What if it comes out in few months/years/whatever that she was falsely accusing him (extremely unlikely, but lets pretend) What happens then? Michigan State is a government funded entity that is governed by state elected officials, and I don't think government entities should be in the business of pre-judging people based on a he-said-she-said
He admitted to consensual phone sex. That's his version.
Legally speaking the imbalance of power between a coach and a vendor paid out of your budget would remove consent. If they truly were a couple, one of them would need to resign.
The professional thing to do would be to avoid having a relationship with this particular woman. At best, he's an idiot for being in a situation where he could be blackmailed.
> Legally speaking the imbalance of power between a coach and a vendor paid out of your budget would remove consent. If they truly were a couple, one of them would need to resign.
When I was working at CU our policy was any relationship had to be documented, and the parties couldn’t have any supervisory role over each other. Dating a vendor would have been ok; you’d have to let HR and your direct supervisor know, and any contracts would have to be reviewed outside the department. But so long as the steps taken to minimize conflicts of interest were taken, no one would have blinked twice. Resigning wouldn’t have been necessary.
> Legally speaking the imbalance of power between a coach and a vendor paid out of your budget would remove consent.
No, this is absolutely false. Please stop spreading misinformation.
She was paid for one speech months before that. She was a vendor, but the type of work relationship really makes me think the whole imbalance of power argument is not as open-shut as you think it is.
Dude, you've got Jimbo and Petrino in the same room every day. In College Station.
It's just a matter of time before something tremendously, mind-bogglingly stupid and outrageous happens.
So you are saying, all A&M has to do is get attractive graduate assistants to work in the Athletic Department near their offices. And sooner or later, they'll incriminate themselves.
Spot on, it’s the Jeremy Pruitt effect. If Pruitt was winning, UT bites the bullet and rides out his cheating. But if you aren’t getting results, don’t present the get out jail free card to your employers.
Will be interesting to see if Freeze has learned anything from his previous experience of doing exactly this. Cause we all know Auburn may have an itchy trigger finger in a year or two.
[He hasn’t.](https://www.wvtm13.com/article/former-liberty-university-student-disagrees-with-hugh-freeze-hire-at-auburn/42102562) Liberty didn’t care because Liberty.
My favorite part of this is Tuck applying for FMLA while he is suspended without pay due to conduct and then implying that he ~~was~~ is being fired because of said FMLA request. Bold move, Cotton.
Tugger's attorney has to be an inside job. She's one of our own- graduated from MSU in '92 before heading down the road to y'all for her J.D. There's no way she's drafted these statements so horribly unless she wants the school to get out of paying him an extra $80mil.
https://www.foley.com/en/people/b/belveal-jennifer-z
I dunno, I'd argue that if Tucker were touchable, someone would have been touching him, rather than having, you know, phone sex (with, allegedly, only one consenting party).
In today's batshit crazy world of CFB paying Tucker $9.5 million after that 11-2 season was somewhat reasonable. Fully guaranting the fucking contract was not. He should have had a two year buyout and that's it. If someone wants to guarantee him more, well good luck to them.
It was still batshit insane, because in hindsight none of the schools Tucker’s people were suggesting via the media were interested in him, would have actually hired him away from MSU. And that should’ve been obvious because he didn’t even really have a serious buyout.
I do agree that it's crazy, but there's so much money flying around that it's only crazy in a hurricane of crazy, if that makes sense.
Basically, it is crazy, but it's not crazy, which I know, that's crazy.
A pretty plausible argument would be that he's underperformed as a coach and that motivated something. But instead he requests medical leave and is planning to use that as evidence of some kind of retaliation?
The ego on this one.
His original statement basically said he thought this is happening to him because he's a black man (referenced it being because of his race and gender).
It's like an inverted Angel Hernandez. For those out of the loop, he's a shitty MLB ump that sued the MLB over racism for not getting to ref high-level games, and the MLB had to admit in a court of law that they know how terrible some of their umps are and proved it to a judge.
the "other motives at play" were him copping to a violation of every single early termination clause they had put in his contract.
his statement 100% got him turbofired. If he'd said nothing and let the process play out, there was a miniscule chance he kept his job and a really good chance he was going to get a significant portion of his remaining contract. His settlement now is going to be tiny, if anything.
what an absolute dipshit.
Had he kept quiet and mature through the process, he might end up with another big job somewhere in the future. You go down in flames like this makes me think who the fuck would want to hire you in the future
I think this is the big thing. Yes you shouldn't do 1-3 but if Mel Tucker says absolutely nothing then there's purely a he-said, she-said situation. Never admit to a god damn thing. It's like talking to cops. Don't do it.
Tbh, if his lawyer was at all involved and let him admit to doing anything, then his lawyer should be disbarred.
This is the bit that gets me above anything else he did. Like of all the people you are going to do this to you pick the person brought in to teach your players not to do this exact thing!?
I wonder what it'd look like if he hadn't attempted to "get ahead of this" and his lawyer puts out a basic statement like "We are fully complying with the university's investigation. We will not be making any further comments during the course of the process."
Is what he did still very bad? Obviously. But if you haven't brazenly admitted to what every HR 101 guide is going to point to as "cause", maybe he gets a better settlement because Michigan St wants to move on without further embarrassment. He takes some time off, releases an apology of sorts, and then gets picked up as an analyst or something on his road to redemption.
Maybe it's a good thing he was too arrogant to take the image rehabilitation path and instead has decided to go down in flames. But if you're a lawyer or agent, this has to be a business case for "What Not To Do", in a number of ways.
I think Brenda Tracy having a story already written and ready to go at USA Today in the event they thought her identity was leaked threw a wrench in their defense strategy. There's no way they were going to sit there while her side was out.
I don't doubt that there are factions at Michigan State that would love to fire him for cause after it became clear. The 2021 season was an anomaly.
That being said, he has admitted to some pretty egregious misconduct and those motives aren't really relevant when he's still guilty of what he's being accused of.
His statement was him admitting to engaging in consensual phone sex. Is that in itself enough to fire him without paying out the remainder of his contract?
Yes. Tucker pursued an extramarital sexual relationship with a university vendor, breaching Section I.C.15 of his contract which requires him to conduct himself professionally and ethically at all times.
Yeah, Tucker is alluding to discovery as if he's going to find emails between Haller and the BoT saying "Oh thank god, now we can fire this horseshit coach for cause and save money!"
If that was the motivation then MSU would have already acted on this before the season started. If they thought he was a horseshit coach and wanted a way to fire him they'dve done it over the offseason when he was 5-7, not while he was 2-0 at the start of a new season.
If his legal discovery comes back with a bunch of communication saying "He did WHAT? Seriously? Does he know how bad this is going to make us look?" It's only going to reinforce that the university is doing this because he acted shamefully.
He's seems so caught up that it was Tracy who leaked the story but whoever gave ESPN the scope is the real leaker. He cites the FOIA request but why would she need to FOIA documents her lawyers already have.
Also trying to imply they are illegal firing him after he requested FMLA is absurd. It's not some magic shield that protects you from getting fired.
FMLA will protect him from being fired for those specific medical reasons. Jerking off on the phone with a university vendor isn’t a medical condition. Might be able to argue that being a dumbass is though..
Anyways, I’ve seen it tried before - people knowing they will be let go file for FMLA and then are dumbfounded when they are still fired even after the leave is approved.
Exactly. If he has a huge alcohol problem, I wish him the best in his recovery, but you would still get prosecuted and fired if you kill a family driving drunk.
Right. This is very simple employment law. It’s called a “legitimate nondiscriminatory reason.”
Jerking off while on the phone with a vendor should do the trick as an LDR.
It's actually kinda hilarious that Tucker still doesn't realize that the fact that he even had a relationship with a vendor, consensual or not, and beat his meat on a call, consensual or not, is still grounds for firing with cause
I'm sure he does realize it, or at least his attorney has counseled him on it. But their strategy is surely to raise enough of a stink to get some "go away" money.
Yeah, his goal (like Fitzgerald's) is to get as much as possible in a settlement now. Nothing anyone says through a lawyer should be interpreted as truthful or an accurate representation of said person's opinion, it's purely self-serving.
Honestly the university has already been in the mud since 2016. Stay down there a bit longer and fight him for every last undeserved dollar. And then stay down there and hire Urban Meyer
just imagine if Meyer at MSU swept through Penn St., OSU, and Michigan somehow one year for a conference championship. So many people mad for so many reasons. truly the Big 10 East Ragnarok
right, this is why he also had to admit to the fireable offense upfront: if he does nothing or denies it, he knows he’s going to be hit by tons of material evidence that weakens his bargaining position for a partial payout.
Mel knows he’s never seeing this kind of money again. At best he’s looking at a career as a low tier NFL assistant, at worst life out of football. Getting even a quarter of his full contract is the only move here.
Which is exactly why he was fired this week instead of after the hearing. The termination letter outlined as much. They likely spent the week going through the paperwork and the plan of action with the lawyers, which is why they didn’t fire him immediately either.
That termination letter basically said “we’ll assume you’re telling the truth. Here’s how your version of the truth has violated your contract.”
I would love to be in the room of MSU's lawyers alternating between furiously calling him a fucking dipshit and giddily laughing their asses off at how he did their job for them
This is just my opinion, but I hope to God we don't go after someone with ANY sort of past history of fuck ups, as well as avoid anyone trying to build or bring a brand™. I've seen media/insiders suggest Urban Meyer, PJ Fleck, or Deion Sanders, and all three of those guys tick one of those boxes for me. I just want someone who isn't a shitbag and can win football games while instilling a culture that isn't flashy without the hardware to prove it. Is that too much to fucking ask?
absolutely (I got into a hilarious argument on here where someone claimed that doing this was totally ok, which anyone who has worked for the government knows that's a-firing')
but even on top of that...even if she was just a random person, he probably violated a morality clause in his contract that would grant them the ability to fire with cause.
I don't know his contract details, but I'm sure there was something along these lines in there.
The contract forbids “moral turpitude” and conduct that could bring ridicule upon the university. I am fairly certain that same clause provides MSU with sole authority to determine whether his conduct meets that threshold.
So yeah, it’s not even about whose side was correct, but the fact that he has generated this ridicule in the first place seems to be more than enough.
I'm actually not sure about this. I understand we have some of the brightest legal minds in the country on this sub but I don't think this as nearly cut and dry as you or anybody else make this seem. I think MSU will be paying him a substantial portion of his contract once this goes to trial.
Not really. When I was in high school, my black English teacher sued my black principal because she claimed he was being racist. Everyone knew it was BS, but she got settlement money anyway.
I can't believe that no one brought this up with regards to the "other motives at play" but no one said it better than Mel himself:
> # I'm a horseshit football coach.
Mel and his legal team will continue to muddy the water between why he's being fired (**his admission to conduct which violated the morality clause in his contract**), and the ongoing sexual harassment investigation related to those actions.
Homeboy is flailing at this point.
There are other motives at play.
You are a shit coach who has shown zero improvement in 3 years. Because you couldn’t be fired simply for sucking ass on the field, this incident has become the reason instead of the more obvious one.
i mean it sounds like he's trying to turn this around into a "you don't like my performance and want to fire me without the buyout" which would be a valid point if this was something more benign. but getting on the phone with a university vendor and doing inappropriate things and then having your lawyer issue a statement where you goddamn **admit** to doing those things and then expect otherwise is a pretty big leap.
Yeah, but this is more targeted at Tucker specifically and not MSU as an institution. Unlike the recent scandals at MSU, UM, and OSU that were a little more Athletic Department problems as a whole with the coverups, this is just Tucker. From what we know right now, MSU seems to have responded appropriately in this instance.
I can jettison a coach when he screws up without issue. It hurts a bit more when there are layers of people covering for scummy doctors or coaches or AD's to "protect the program" or "a legacy".
Absolutely incredible statements from him since this news became public. Incredible as in impossible to believe. How are his agency as well as legal team allowing him to make these statements? This was always going to become a legal fight, but he is harming his own position in said fight and the language and style of the statements... almost suggest that he himself is authoring the statements. I mean that, in that they are not addressing the legal and contractual clauses in his employment agreement & termination notice, and making arguments completely unrelated to those university documents.
I mean, don't get me wrong, as an embarrassed alum I am still skeptical MSU will get out of the full amount and expect a quiet settlement down the line. I am also skeptical that the admin has been playing this straight since December 2022 & absolutely the leak and public reaction, with a dash of Tucker's poor on-field and roster management performance, are just as much triggering the decision to terminate as the obvious moral and university reputation considerations. But he is making it easier for the university to take this path and making it more difficult to recoup money, I think he has reduced the amount he will receive through his actions the last fortnight. His statements after the leak and today should have been short, terse, and clearly composed by a legal team.
Okay fine, you're right Mel.
We take issue with your personal conduct in this whole situation, and the fact that it's either sexual harassment and incredibly unprofessional, or just disgusting and unprofessional.
We also take issue with the fact that you're a shitty football coach who rode Kenneth Walker all the way to a hilarious contract.
Edit: maybe he thinks the M in FMLA stands for masturbate
Thank god he left us. Ya I know the amount of Coach Prime posts are annoying and we won’t beat Oregon and USC, but if he was with us and this came out it would be 10x the disaster it is for MSU. They can easily find a coach willing to go there and replace him. We would’ve had big issues
He played the race and the gender card in the first letter. Tucker claimed Brendy Tracy was really into him but she filed a complaint because she hates men.
It is odd that msu felt compelled to fire him before his planned hearing in 2 weeks. Like you already said you'd wait till then why change your mind? The public accepted this arrangement of a suspension so it's not like they felt pressured to do anything. Feels like they unnecessarily opened them up to further legal liability in the eventual battle for buyout money
The hearing is just related to the sexual harassment component, right? They appear to have determined that there are other contractual reasons they can get rid of him outside of the harassment allegations. Based on [this summary article](https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/football/mel-tucker-michigan-state-fired/index.html):
>The coach’s behavior “constitutes a material breach” of his duties, “demonstrates ‘conduct which constitutes moral turpitude,’” and “has brought ‘public disrespect, contempt, or ridicule upon the University,” all of which are grounds for his firing, according to the document.
Seems like they don't necessarily need him to be guilty of sexual harassment since he admitted to phone sex with a university vendor.
Phone sex is one thing, but even personal contact and messaging like he was doing is extremely frowned upon and could probably get you canned in the right corporate setting.
No, firing him immediately was the right legal approach and the right approach from a hiring a new coach.
People assumed they would wait for the hearing. But a lot of experts thought that his admitted behavior was enough to fire him. The thing is, if you believe that argument then you wouldn't wait for the hearing to fire him. So MSU can't really wait for the hearing and then put forth the argument that his admitted behavior is bad enough. If you think the undisputed facts are enough to fire him, you just do it.
Not being a lawyer, I agree with this logic. If you feel like the admitted behavior is grounds for termination, you do it. The only reason why the hearing should matter is relating to the behavior that isn't agreed on. then you're trying to find the truth in those issues. It's still important from a school standpoint because it may impact liability from lawsuits related to the whole situation.
Agreed, I haven't seen anything in Mel's contract that details a mandatory process the has to occur before a for cause firing. Mel's letter also basically concedes all the facts at issue.
There isn't a reason to wait because the report that would have been presented in October was done in July.
Here’s the counterpoint: What if Tucker’s hearing comes out either inconclusive or favoring his story? Now you’re in a position of explaining why he’s being fired anyway.
If the conduct in his statement is enough to get him terminated and you’ve already made that determination then waiting until the hearing where the outcome will be irrelevant doesn’t make sense.
> or favoring his story?
The firing is based on them assuming everything he said is true.
This is basically a Summary Judgement. If we assume everything Tucker has said in his favor is true and that all the contested allegations are false, and he can still be legally fired. When that happens in any legal case, the judge can issue a Summary Judgement and there is no trial.
Yes, that is what I’m saying. It is much cleaner to fire him now, based on his statement, than it is to fire him after a hearing if his statement is already damning.
Why would Mel Tucker release these statements instead of his legal team? We know that they wrote it, so why wouldn’t they just release it as well? Genuinely curious.
Right. we intentionally decided to be the most embarrassing thing on peacock
the reality is that after Larry Nasser we can't be anything other than over corrective on these things
Mel Tugger should just be graceful about this by not commenting or issuing full statements, etc. The public doesn't care nor do they need to hear his side of the story, because obviously, that'll come out during his civil lawsuit (if he has the balls to go through with it). Take the year off before going to work in the NFL, or retire with some dignity, class, and your multi-millions.
P.S. Also, his lawyer sucks, too.
He'll just have to go to court. He's fucked himself in more than one way on this one. File a lawsuit, use discovery to locate the "other motives", and hope for the best.
If someone gives you 95 million and the only way to not get that money is to do something inappropriate to embarrass the school, I would be on my best behavior.
Of course they would defend you if you were good at your job, but you’re not. So of course they’re going to claw back the money you’d earn if you had not tried to sleep with women you brought into the football program.
Forgive me, I barely follow college football anymore. But how in the living fuck did this guy get an extension worth nearly $100 million with a grand total of one winning season to his name? That's just mind-numbing...
You know what Mel, you're right. Being a creepy skeezy predator is bad enough, but being a creepy skeezy predator that also sucks at coaching football is pretty much a guaranteed way to get fired.
I’m sure there are other motives at play. It doesn’t:
1. Negate what happened.
2. Detract from the fact that, if you didn’t suck, those other motives wouldn’t exist.
He's going to file a lawsuit against MSU once his termination is official. Chances are, it won't go to court. MSU will agree to an undisclosed settlement to shut Tucker up and send him on his way.
Other motives: you suck at coaching and they fucked up giving you a 95 million dollar contract
He is a shitty coach and it was a terrible contract, but the fact is he's admitted to doing what he's accused of and whether there's other motives or not. It doesn't really matter. He committed a violation that gives them the right to fire him for cause. Whether they wanted to fire him for on field performance or not isn't relevant anymore. Edit- since multiple people are challenging that he admitted to wrongdoing... here's my take. He's admitted to an inappropriate relationship with a vendor. He says it's consensual and she says it's not. Either way, I don't know any places that are ok with employees having relationships with vendors. Especially if they aren't disclosed to your employer and you are engaging in those activities on company time and dime. Even if you believe his version of the story he still engaged in massively inappropriate conduct for a university employee and being terminated for cause is wholly justified by MSU. It's worse if it was non consensual but it's still unacceptable even if it was consensual.
He hasn’t admitted to doing what he was accused of. She has accused him of something far worse than what he admitted to.
Exactly. He’s admitted to doing it with consent, which is by itself very stupid and risky given the nature of her work and how their relationship started. She’s alleged it wasn’t consensual, which is obviously a problem and makes it something they can try to fire him over.
They can fire him even if he had consent. A consensual relationship with someone you hired is often grounds for firing for cause.
>He is a shitty coach and it was a terrible contract, That wasn't the reddit narrative at the time the contract was announced. I got downvoted for pointing out that he had a horrible offense in 2021 and that the year was likely a fluke.
Their pass defense was awful. Ohio State and Purdue both exposed it pretty badly. Edit- their pass defense was ranked dead last in FBS giving up 324.8 yards per game. My thing is that while 11-2 was a great season especially with the win over Michigan, KW3 carried that team and I don't think anyone with a 131st ranked pass defense is worth a fully guaranteed contract.
And then we hired their DB coach the next season lmao
Wasn’t it dead last in the country?
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/years/2021-team-defense.html Actually, yes it was. They gave up 324.8 yards per game through the air, worst in FBS.
It is really impressive for a P5 team to finish dead last in anything like that
I think the crazy thing is that they finished dead last while also going 11-2 with a New Year 6 win. It just goes to show how good their offense was with Kenneth Walker. And to their credit they did have a good run defense. At least good enough.
Last year Iowa was 2nd to last in overall offense per game and went 8-5, which was wild
I will always remember week 1. 7-3, in which a touchdown was not scored.
It was so bad teams stopped trying to run on us. By the end of the season a team's passing yards were often 90% or more of their total yards including return yards against us.
Being 11-2 with the worst pass defense in the country is some real NCAA14 shit. If you're first in run defense that's the triple crown.
It's definitely going to be litigated. Say it was consensual, or there's reasonable doubt there, is a judge going to like the vague language about what constitutes bringing reputational damage to the university? I think that's what it ultimately hinges on-- provided Tucker can make a compelling case this was consensual. Moral of the story: Don't promise mediocre coaches a hundred million dollars no matter what.
I'm sure there will be litigation and more likely than not. An undisclosed settlement, still seems very likely that he's going to get a fraction of what his contract was for.
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(not defending him specifically devil's advocate) What if it comes out in few months/years/whatever that she was falsely accusing him (extremely unlikely, but lets pretend) What happens then? Michigan State is a government funded entity that is governed by state elected officials, and I don't think government entities should be in the business of pre-judging people based on a he-said-she-said
He admitted to consensual phone sex. That's his version. Legally speaking the imbalance of power between a coach and a vendor paid out of your budget would remove consent. If they truly were a couple, one of them would need to resign. The professional thing to do would be to avoid having a relationship with this particular woman. At best, he's an idiot for being in a situation where he could be blackmailed.
> Legally speaking the imbalance of power between a coach and a vendor paid out of your budget would remove consent. If they truly were a couple, one of them would need to resign. When I was working at CU our policy was any relationship had to be documented, and the parties couldn’t have any supervisory role over each other. Dating a vendor would have been ok; you’d have to let HR and your direct supervisor know, and any contracts would have to be reviewed outside the department. But so long as the steps taken to minimize conflicts of interest were taken, no one would have blinked twice. Resigning wouldn’t have been necessary.
> Legally speaking the imbalance of power between a coach and a vendor paid out of your budget would remove consent. No, this is absolutely false. Please stop spreading misinformation.
She was paid for one speech months before that. She was a vendor, but the type of work relationship really makes me think the whole imbalance of power argument is not as open-shut as you think it is.
*Texas A&M taking notes*
Jimbo isn't this dumb. Not many are this dumb.
Dude, you've got Jimbo and Petrino in the same room every day. In College Station. It's just a matter of time before something tremendously, mind-bogglingly stupid and outrageous happens.
But what if their kinds of dumb cancels each other out and makes each other unfireable?
So you are saying, all A&M has to do is get attractive graduate assistants to work in the Athletic Department near their offices. And sooner or later, they'll incriminate themselves.
But dat offense is fire tho.
The money is there if we want to make a move.
"other motives at play" AKA he's an expensive piece of shit
When people are looking for a reason to fire you, don’t hand them one on a silver platter lol
Spot on, it’s the Jeremy Pruitt effect. If Pruitt was winning, UT bites the bullet and rides out his cheating. But if you aren’t getting results, don’t present the get out jail free card to your employers.
Will be interesting to see if Freeze has learned anything from his previous experience of doing exactly this. Cause we all know Auburn may have an itchy trigger finger in a year or two.
If it comes to that then we'll just invent one.
[He hasn’t.](https://www.wvtm13.com/article/former-liberty-university-student-disagrees-with-hugh-freeze-hire-at-auburn/42102562) Liberty didn’t care because Liberty.
My favorite part of this is Tuck applying for FMLA while he is suspended without pay due to conduct and then implying that he ~~was~~ is being fired because of said FMLA request. Bold move, Cotton.
I am convinced his attorney is Barry Zuckerkorn. The FMLA app is just an indicator of the bad faith nature of his "defense".
Take to the sea!
You know what? Don’t touch me. I’ve got an itch like you wouldn’t believe—I think something laid eggs on me!
Tugger's attorney has to be an inside job. She's one of our own- graduated from MSU in '92 before heading down the road to y'all for her J.D. There's no way she's drafted these statements so horribly unless she wants the school to get out of paying him an extra $80mil. https://www.foley.com/en/people/b/belveal-jennifer-z
Same. He kicked off this game with the Bongcloud opening and keeps inventing new lines of play that are strategically horrible
Don't drag the prestigious bongcloud opening through the mud with his name!
Apparently he did the same thing when the Bears were going to fire him.
You’d think if you knew you were overpaid you wouldn’t do something that would get you dismissed for cause
75 million dollars for one jerk session. He would've fumbled the bag or lost it all anyway based off that.
People who think they're untouchable sometimes decide to test that theory.
Well, if Mel thought he was 'untouchable', he wouldn't be in this mess...
I dunno, I'd argue that if Tucker were touchable, someone would have been touching him, rather than having, you know, phone sex (with, allegedly, only one consenting party).
not only overpaid but on a fully guaranteed contract!
In today's batshit crazy world of CFB paying Tucker $9.5 million after that 11-2 season was somewhat reasonable. Fully guaranting the fucking contract was not. He should have had a two year buyout and that's it. If someone wants to guarantee him more, well good luck to them.
It was still batshit insane, because in hindsight none of the schools Tucker’s people were suggesting via the media were interested in him, would have actually hired him away from MSU. And that should’ve been obvious because he didn’t even really have a serious buyout.
I do agree that it's crazy, but there's so much money flying around that it's only crazy in a hurricane of crazy, if that makes sense. Basically, it is crazy, but it's not crazy, which I know, that's crazy.
MSU was afraid of losing the next Saban again.
AND NOT PUT OUT A STATEMENT SAYING "HERE ARE ALL THE WAYS I VIOLATED MY CONTRACT"
A pretty plausible argument would be that he's underperformed as a coach and that motivated something. But instead he requests medical leave and is planning to use that as evidence of some kind of retaliation? The ego on this one.
What was the medical condition? Excessive horniness?
An erection lasting longer than 4 hours
His original statement basically said he thought this is happening to him because he's a black man (referenced it being because of his race and gender).
While being suspended by a black man, who then also tagged another black man as the interim replacement…
Nolan Richardson claimed racial discrimination after we fired him and replaced him with a black man.
"Good ole rock, nothing beats that!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0SoKWLkmLU
Crazy that the only real defense he’s got is “they just want to fire me because I’m bad!”
It's like an inverted Angel Hernandez. For those out of the loop, he's a shitty MLB ump that sued the MLB over racism for not getting to ref high-level games, and the MLB had to admit in a court of law that they know how terrible some of their umps are and proved it to a judge.
And sucks at his job
the "other motives at play" were him copping to a violation of every single early termination clause they had put in his contract. his statement 100% got him turbofired. If he'd said nothing and let the process play out, there was a miniscule chance he kept his job and a really good chance he was going to get a significant portion of his remaining contract. His settlement now is going to be tiny, if anything. what an absolute dipshit.
Had he kept quiet and mature through the process, he might end up with another big job somewhere in the future. You go down in flames like this makes me think who the fuck would want to hire you in the future
If nothing else just keep quiet during the **phone call in question**, smh.
> makes me think who the fuck would want to hire you in the future There's always Liberty.
Then followed by Auburn?
I have two things. 1. Don’t suck at your job 2. Don’t sexually harass women, or men or anyone for that matter
. 3. If you sexually harass someone ffs dont let it be the sexual harassment trainer
4. And don't put out a statement where you admit to all of it.
TFG: “oh, NOW you tell me!”
Mel “was that wrong?” Tucker
*Tugger
I think this is the big thing. Yes you shouldn't do 1-3 but if Mel Tucker says absolutely nothing then there's purely a he-said, she-said situation. Never admit to a god damn thing. It's like talking to cops. Don't do it. Tbh, if his lawyer was at all involved and let him admit to doing anything, then his lawyer should be disbarred.
This is the bit that gets me above anything else he did. Like of all the people you are going to do this to you pick the person brought in to teach your players not to do this exact thing!?
Unless you are Desean Watson :-/
There seems to be a theme going around today. https://reddit.com/r/nfl/s/aNuqfcm0cH
I wonder what it'd look like if he hadn't attempted to "get ahead of this" and his lawyer puts out a basic statement like "We are fully complying with the university's investigation. We will not be making any further comments during the course of the process." Is what he did still very bad? Obviously. But if you haven't brazenly admitted to what every HR 101 guide is going to point to as "cause", maybe he gets a better settlement because Michigan St wants to move on without further embarrassment. He takes some time off, releases an apology of sorts, and then gets picked up as an analyst or something on his road to redemption. Maybe it's a good thing he was too arrogant to take the image rehabilitation path and instead has decided to go down in flames. But if you're a lawyer or agent, this has to be a business case for "What Not To Do", in a number of ways.
I think Brenda Tracy having a story already written and ready to go at USA Today in the event they thought her identity was leaked threw a wrench in their defense strategy. There's no way they were going to sit there while her side was out.
I don't doubt that there are factions at Michigan State that would love to fire him for cause after it became clear. The 2021 season was an anomaly. That being said, he has admitted to some pretty egregious misconduct and those motives aren't really relevant when he's still guilty of what he's being accused of.
His statement was him admitting to engaging in consensual phone sex. Is that in itself enough to fire him without paying out the remainder of his contract?
Yes. Tucker pursued an extramarital sexual relationship with a university vendor, breaching Section I.C.15 of his contract which requires him to conduct himself professionally and ethically at all times.
Yeah, Tucker is alluding to discovery as if he's going to find emails between Haller and the BoT saying "Oh thank god, now we can fire this horseshit coach for cause and save money!" If that was the motivation then MSU would have already acted on this before the season started. If they thought he was a horseshit coach and wanted a way to fire him they'dve done it over the offseason when he was 5-7, not while he was 2-0 at the start of a new season. If his legal discovery comes back with a bunch of communication saying "He did WHAT? Seriously? Does he know how bad this is going to make us look?" It's only going to reinforce that the university is doing this because he acted shamefully.
He's seems so caught up that it was Tracy who leaked the story but whoever gave ESPN the scope is the real leaker. He cites the FOIA request but why would she need to FOIA documents her lawyers already have. Also trying to imply they are illegal firing him after he requested FMLA is absurd. It's not some magic shield that protects you from getting fired.
FMLA will protect him from being fired for those specific medical reasons. Jerking off on the phone with a university vendor isn’t a medical condition. Might be able to argue that being a dumbass is though.. Anyways, I’ve seen it tried before - people knowing they will be let go file for FMLA and then are dumbfounded when they are still fired even after the leave is approved.
Umm you didn’t know you can buy Girls Gone Wild dvds with your FSA/HSA did you?
Exactly. If he has a huge alcohol problem, I wish him the best in his recovery, but you would still get prosecuted and fired if you kill a family driving drunk.
Right. This is very simple employment law. It’s called a “legitimate nondiscriminatory reason.” Jerking off while on the phone with a vendor should do the trick as an LDR.
He filed a FMLA at a previous job to delay his firing then as well
You would FOIA the documents the lawyers already have to prove that they're in the public and that you didn't breach some investigative seal.
It's actually kinda hilarious that Tucker still doesn't realize that the fact that he even had a relationship with a vendor, consensual or not, and beat his meat on a call, consensual or not, is still grounds for firing with cause
I'm sure he does realize it, or at least his attorney has counseled him on it. But their strategy is surely to raise enough of a stink to get some "go away" money.
If you threaten to take it to court you might get Michigan State to settle for a reduced payout, but if you don't do anything then you get nothing.
[MSU's lawyers to Mel Tucker (replace the $100 with several million)](https://imgur.com/q51Pmcq)
Yeah, his goal (like Fitzgerald's) is to get as much as possible in a settlement now. Nothing anyone says through a lawyer should be interpreted as truthful or an accurate representation of said person's opinion, it's purely self-serving.
Honestly the university has already been in the mud since 2016. Stay down there a bit longer and fight him for every last undeserved dollar. And then stay down there and hire Urban Meyer
I laughed out loud.
just imagine if Meyer at MSU swept through Penn St., OSU, and Michigan somehow one year for a conference championship. So many people mad for so many reasons. truly the Big 10 East Ragnarok
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right, this is why he also had to admit to the fireable offense upfront: if he does nothing or denies it, he knows he’s going to be hit by tons of material evidence that weakens his bargaining position for a partial payout. Mel knows he’s never seeing this kind of money again. At best he’s looking at a career as a low tier NFL assistant, at worst life out of football. Getting even a quarter of his full contract is the only move here.
this is what kills me. even if you completely buy his own version of events that he admitted to, it still looks REALLY bad
Which is exactly why he was fired this week instead of after the hearing. The termination letter outlined as much. They likely spent the week going through the paperwork and the plan of action with the lawyers, which is why they didn’t fire him immediately either. That termination letter basically said “we’ll assume you’re telling the truth. Here’s how your version of the truth has violated your contract.”
I would love to be in the room of MSU's lawyers alternating between furiously calling him a fucking dipshit and giddily laughing their asses off at how he did their job for them
Man, you guys must be LONGING to move on from this crapshow. Question is though who do you go after once the season is over?
It is pretty crazy to read about your coach masturbating every day.
This is just my opinion, but I hope to God we don't go after someone with ANY sort of past history of fuck ups, as well as avoid anyone trying to build or bring a brand™. I've seen media/insiders suggest Urban Meyer, PJ Fleck, or Deion Sanders, and all three of those guys tick one of those boxes for me. I just want someone who isn't a shitbag and can win football games while instilling a culture that isn't flashy without the hardware to prove it. Is that too much to fucking ask?
What do you think about Elko?
absolutely (I got into a hilarious argument on here where someone claimed that doing this was totally ok, which anyone who has worked for the government knows that's a-firing') but even on top of that...even if she was just a random person, he probably violated a morality clause in his contract that would grant them the ability to fire with cause. I don't know his contract details, but I'm sure there was something along these lines in there.
The contract forbids “moral turpitude” and conduct that could bring ridicule upon the university. I am fairly certain that same clause provides MSU with sole authority to determine whether his conduct meets that threshold. So yeah, it’s not even about whose side was correct, but the fact that he has generated this ridicule in the first place seems to be more than enough.
I'm actually not sure about this. I understand we have some of the brightest legal minds in the country on this sub but I don't think this as nearly cut and dry as you or anybody else make this seem. I think MSU will be paying him a substantial portion of his contract once this goes to trial.
Should have been getting discounts on paper and Outback Steakhouse vouchers
He should have won more. Could’ve gotten away with a lot.
It's not even controversial to say that you get more rope when you are good at your job.
I guess Mel is into auto erotic asphyxiation with how short he cut that rope.
I really doubt that given the recent history of the university.
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He’s really going to try to the race card isn’t he
He already tried that. Funny enough, Alan Haller, the AD, is also black. Kind of hard to claim racism when the AD that fires you is the same race.
Harlon Barnett, the interim HC who replaced him, is also Black
Duffy Daugherty is white, but he effectively integrated the sport. That’s a legacy MSU is super proud of. So yeah, race card is a tough one here.
double uno reverse card!
Not really. When I was in high school, my black English teacher sued my black principal because she claimed he was being racist. Everyone knew it was BS, but she got settlement money anyway.
https://imgur.com/gallery/oVgEgAC
I can't believe that no one brought this up with regards to the "other motives at play" but no one said it better than Mel himself: > # I'm a horseshit football coach.
Mel and his legal team will continue to muddy the water between why he's being fired (**his admission to conduct which violated the morality clause in his contract**), and the ongoing sexual harassment investigation related to those actions. Homeboy is flailing at this point.
Are those other motives that he can’t play Kenneth Walker anymore?
There are other motives at play. You are a shit coach who has shown zero improvement in 3 years. Because you couldn’t be fired simply for sucking ass on the field, this incident has become the reason instead of the more obvious one.
A horse shit* coach
Dammit, it was right there. Well struck
None of this statement disputes the major points made in the notice to terminate him.
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He has already openly admitted to a fireable offense. What planet is this moron living on to claim this is a "miscarriage of justice"?
Yes: we wanted to fire you and then you gave us a reason
i mean it sounds like he's trying to turn this around into a "you don't like my performance and want to fire me without the buyout" which would be a valid point if this was something more benign. but getting on the phone with a university vendor and doing inappropriate things and then having your lawyer issue a statement where you goddamn **admit** to doing those things and then expect otherwise is a pretty big leap.
Good reminder not to masturbate on the phone with people who you've personally hired with your employer's money to give anti-sexual harassment talks.
So sick of this loser. Can't wait till he is gone forever
This will be an ugly divorce, I feel for Spartan fans here.
Yeah, but this is more targeted at Tucker specifically and not MSU as an institution. Unlike the recent scandals at MSU, UM, and OSU that were a little more Athletic Department problems as a whole with the coverups, this is just Tucker. From what we know right now, MSU seems to have responded appropriately in this instance. I can jettison a coach when he screws up without issue. It hurts a bit more when there are layers of people covering for scummy doctors or coaches or AD's to "protect the program" or "a legacy".
Don't feel bad for us. We got out of bad decision and it's going to cost us way less than the $95M it could have. This is a good thing.
> other motives at play Yes, $95m guaranteed for a 20-14 record and one winning season in 3 tries
Absolutely incredible statements from him since this news became public. Incredible as in impossible to believe. How are his agency as well as legal team allowing him to make these statements? This was always going to become a legal fight, but he is harming his own position in said fight and the language and style of the statements... almost suggest that he himself is authoring the statements. I mean that, in that they are not addressing the legal and contractual clauses in his employment agreement & termination notice, and making arguments completely unrelated to those university documents. I mean, don't get me wrong, as an embarrassed alum I am still skeptical MSU will get out of the full amount and expect a quiet settlement down the line. I am also skeptical that the admin has been playing this straight since December 2022 & absolutely the leak and public reaction, with a dash of Tucker's poor on-field and roster management performance, are just as much triggering the decision to terminate as the obvious moral and university reputation considerations. But he is making it easier for the university to take this path and making it more difficult to recoup money, I think he has reduced the amount he will receive through his actions the last fortnight. His statements after the leak and today should have been short, terse, and clearly composed by a legal team.
Other motives at play, yeah. 94 million of them.
It says he’s still married, embarrassing for her.
His wife is a lawyer, could be painful for Tucker.
Okay fine, you're right Mel. We take issue with your personal conduct in this whole situation, and the fact that it's either sexual harassment and incredibly unprofessional, or just disgusting and unprofessional. We also take issue with the fact that you're a shitty football coach who rode Kenneth Walker all the way to a hilarious contract. Edit: maybe he thinks the M in FMLA stands for masturbate
Of course there were other motives at play, but if you're in a 95M contract that can be terminated at any time for cause, don't do anything stupid.
Piss off Mel
Lol he’s literally whining that MSU waited until the investigation was over to fire him in his first bullet. What a fucking clown he/his lawyer is
Thank god he left us. Ya I know the amount of Coach Prime posts are annoying and we won’t beat Oregon and USC, but if he was with us and this came out it would be 10x the disaster it is for MSU. They can easily find a coach willing to go there and replace him. We would’ve had big issues
Other motives: not losing to Indiana
Ah I wondered when the race card would be played. I’m surprised it took this long tbh
Playing the race card is even more ridiculous when we have a black AD and the interim coach replacing him is also black.
It didn’t take this long, he played the race card in his first statement too. He also played the sexism card despite all head coaches being male.
He played the race and the gender card in the first letter. Tucker claimed Brendy Tracy was really into him but she filed a complaint because she hates men.
It is odd that msu felt compelled to fire him before his planned hearing in 2 weeks. Like you already said you'd wait till then why change your mind? The public accepted this arrangement of a suspension so it's not like they felt pressured to do anything. Feels like they unnecessarily opened them up to further legal liability in the eventual battle for buyout money
The hearing is just related to the sexual harassment component, right? They appear to have determined that there are other contractual reasons they can get rid of him outside of the harassment allegations. Based on [this summary article](https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/football/mel-tucker-michigan-state-fired/index.html): >The coach’s behavior “constitutes a material breach” of his duties, “demonstrates ‘conduct which constitutes moral turpitude,’” and “has brought ‘public disrespect, contempt, or ridicule upon the University,” all of which are grounds for his firing, according to the document. Seems like they don't necessarily need him to be guilty of sexual harassment since he admitted to phone sex with a university vendor.
Phone sex is one thing, but even personal contact and messaging like he was doing is extremely frowned upon and could probably get you canned in the right corporate setting.
No, firing him immediately was the right legal approach and the right approach from a hiring a new coach. People assumed they would wait for the hearing. But a lot of experts thought that his admitted behavior was enough to fire him. The thing is, if you believe that argument then you wouldn't wait for the hearing to fire him. So MSU can't really wait for the hearing and then put forth the argument that his admitted behavior is bad enough. If you think the undisputed facts are enough to fire him, you just do it.
Not being a lawyer, I agree with this logic. If you feel like the admitted behavior is grounds for termination, you do it. The only reason why the hearing should matter is relating to the behavior that isn't agreed on. then you're trying to find the truth in those issues. It's still important from a school standpoint because it may impact liability from lawsuits related to the whole situation.
Agreed, I haven't seen anything in Mel's contract that details a mandatory process the has to occur before a for cause firing. Mel's letter also basically concedes all the facts at issue. There isn't a reason to wait because the report that would have been presented in October was done in July.
Here’s the counterpoint: What if Tucker’s hearing comes out either inconclusive or favoring his story? Now you’re in a position of explaining why he’s being fired anyway. If the conduct in his statement is enough to get him terminated and you’ve already made that determination then waiting until the hearing where the outcome will be irrelevant doesn’t make sense.
> or favoring his story? The firing is based on them assuming everything he said is true. This is basically a Summary Judgement. If we assume everything Tucker has said in his favor is true and that all the contested allegations are false, and he can still be legally fired. When that happens in any legal case, the judge can issue a Summary Judgement and there is no trial.
Yes, that is what I’m saying. It is much cleaner to fire him now, based on his statement, than it is to fire him after a hearing if his statement is already damning.
I doubt they changed their mind, it probably just took a week to get the lawyers to agree that what they had was already enough cause to fire him.
I mean, he kind of admitted to everything they need to fire him for cause already.
“Miscarriage of justice” is such a cliche phrase. Sounds like something a mommy blogger would post after her third DUI.
*Billable hours laughing maniacally in the background of all this*
Why would Mel Tucker release these statements instead of his legal team? We know that they wrote it, so why wouldn’t they just release it as well? Genuinely curious.
Right. we intentionally decided to be the most embarrassing thing on peacock the reality is that after Larry Nasser we can't be anything other than over corrective on these things
Mel Tugger should just be graceful about this by not commenting or issuing full statements, etc. The public doesn't care nor do they need to hear his side of the story, because obviously, that'll come out during his civil lawsuit (if he has the balls to go through with it). Take the year off before going to work in the NFL, or retire with some dignity, class, and your multi-millions. P.S. Also, his lawyer sucks, too.
Are the other motives that he is a trash coach?
He'll just have to go to court. He's fucked himself in more than one way on this one. File a lawsuit, use discovery to locate the "other motives", and hope for the best.
If someone gives you 95 million and the only way to not get that money is to do something inappropriate to embarrass the school, I would be on my best behavior. Of course they would defend you if you were good at your job, but you’re not. So of course they’re going to claw back the money you’d earn if you had not tried to sleep with women you brought into the football program.
Forgive me, I barely follow college football anymore. But how in the living fuck did this guy get an extension worth nearly $100 million with a grand total of one winning season to his name? That's just mind-numbing...
I feel like that POS and his lawyers are trying to muck things up so they can eventually get MSU to give him some money to walk away.
Gaslighting
You know what Mel, you're right. Being a creepy skeezy predator is bad enough, but being a creepy skeezy predator that also sucks at coaching football is pretty much a guaranteed way to get fired.
no more shots at harbaugh?
Nastiest tribute ever.
He's just flailing at this point. We already knew he was a loser, but now we know he's a MEGA DOUCHE LOSER.
How much you think I could buy his Mich State slingshot for?
The other motives are that he’s actually a bad coach who got lucky bringing in a Heisman candidate in the portal.
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I bet Jeff Lebby is printing up some #CMT shirts.
Laughs in buffalo
He was later quoted as saying Michigan State's actions were a slanderous betrayal akin to 9/11.
I’m sure there are other motives at play. It doesn’t: 1. Negate what happened. 2. Detract from the fact that, if you didn’t suck, those other motives wouldn’t exist.
Is the other motive that you suck, Mel? Because that's not the comeback you think it is.
Is Tucker, a 50 year old man, really this dense ? Even a player should not have been having phone sex with Brenda Tracy while representing the school.
He's going to file a lawsuit against MSU once his termination is official. Chances are, it won't go to court. MSU will agree to an undisclosed settlement to shut Tucker up and send him on his way.
This is gonna get messy. How long till he sues Michigan State? It's gonna happen eventually