Wednesday marked a big day at fall camp for Michigan State.

It was the first day the Spartans were able to practice in full pads. That seems to be a big day at every preseason camp for most football teams. It’s the closest the players can come to live game action outside of scrimmages. It’s a chance to be physical and hit some people. For Michigan State, it was a day Mel Tucker deemed as an important one.

“We challenge our players to have a more physical practice this morning and to give extreme effort,” Tucker said in a video released by Michigan State football’s Twitter account. “We did that and so we got better.”

Extreme effort appears to be a new buzzword that may be coming to a college football coach near you. Not exactly sure what it means and how it can exactly be measured, but I guess whatever coaches have to do to fire up their players.

If Michigan State is going to improve in year two with Tucker leading the way, extreme effort may be necessary. 2020 was a rough one for the Spartans. There were the downs of losing at home to Rutgers and other blowout losses to ranked opponents. The one bright spot came in the form of a win in Ann Arbor. But the feeling in East Lansing appears to be more focused on the losing and how that can improve.