Michigan State has turned things around from a 2-5 showing last year in Mel Tucker’s first year with the Spartans. Now 7 games into the 2021 season, Tucker has his team undefeated and ranked inside the top 10.

Powered by star offensive playmakers that include Heisman candidate Kenneth Walker III and an improved defense, Michigan State is trying to keep things rolling with another upset of in-state rival Michigan. The dramatic turnaround has been fun to watch, and it has caught the eye of Kirk Herbstreit.

The popular College GameDay co-host and analyst for ESPN previewed the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry ahead of the weekend, and Herbstreit labeled Tucker’s Spartans the biggest surprise in the country.

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“I think Michigan State has been the biggest surprise in the country, not just in the Big Ten,” said Herbstreit via ESPN’s Press Room. “To think about where they were in Mel Tucker’s first year. Keep in mind, like a lot of other first-year coaches in 2020 – it’s a global pandemic, heavy restrictions, no spring football, cancel the season, oh no, now we’re going to have a season, and it’s just unprecedented what he went through his first year. They looked like, obviously, a severe work in progress.

“I don’t know if anybody took advantage of the transfer portal as much as Mel Tucker did. And you look on their roster now, most notably Kenneth Walker from Wake Forest and it’s sprinkled all throughout their roster. They’ve upgraded and taken advantage of the 2021 way of doing business, and now they’ve got a confident football team.

“They could have lost a couple games, but to their credit, they found ways to win against Nebraska, they won against Indiana. Those games could have gone the other way. But when you find ways to win games, your team starts to believe in your culture, starts to believe in your way of doing things, and I think that’s where Michigan State is right now. I think they’ve become a really confident, dangerous team, and they’re always tough in East Lansing.”