Report: MSU nearing landmark extension with Mel Tucker

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Rumors surrounding Mel Tucker's future at Michigan State have been swirling for weeks. The Spartans were expected to finish last in the Big Ten East and win just 4.5 games this season, according to Vegas sportsbooks. Yet, Tucker's squad is sitting at nine wins with at least three games left to go. This remarkable turnaround has put the second-year MSU head coach on LSU's shortlist, per Bruce Feldman and others. At the same time, power brokers in East Lansing jumped into action to keep Tucker in East Lansing for years to come.

Tuesday night, the momentum behind Mel Tucker nearing an extension received a significant boost. Former Michigan State football alums Brian Mosallam and Jason Strayhorn discussed the extension during their weekly "Inside the Locker Room" YouTube show. Mosallam played at MSU from 1992-1996, while Strayhorn played at MSU from 1995-1998. In recent years, they have found themselves embedded in the inner-circle at Michigan State, as Mosallam recently served as a Board of Trustee member and Strayhorn serves as a color analyst for the official MSU Athletics radio team.

Mosallam and Strayhorn started the segment by addressing a recent tweet where Colin Cowherd talked about Mel Tucker's possible contract extension. In the tweet, Cowherd credited billionaires Dan Gilbert and Mat Ishbia for putting up money to fund Tucker's extension. While the co-hosts confirmed that an extension is seemingly in the cards, Mosallam corrected Cowherd for crediting Dan Gilbert's role in this extension. Instead, he identified Mat Ishbia and Steve St. Andre as the two mega-donors that deserve credit for stepping up to the plate here.

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