Why Mel Tucker won't let Michigan State football look ahead to Western Michigan opener yet

EAST LANSING – Mel Tucker’s main teaching points in the final days of preseason camp this week are about Michigan State’s football program and not its first opponent, the Western Michigan Broncos.

That work begins soon enough, with the Sept. 2 opener eight days away. Until then, the Spartans are focused on installing schemes and working the basics – biding their time while champing at the bit to get the season underway.

“It's interesting because we're getting closer to the game, so these game-specific questions are coming in and all that,” Tucker said Monday. “But I'm still in camp, I'm in camp mode right now. We are in camp mode right now. … It's like a grind is really what it is.”

Tucker said it is up to him when camp officially ends — “We’re not gonna have a celebration,” he quipped. First, scout teams need to be finalized, and reps for first and second units divvied up. The plan is to have a mock game day Friday at Spartan Stadium to mimic the walk through and warmups and create “some built-in organization out there” for when the season begins the following week. Because the season kicks off with a Friday game, the Spartans’ normal in-season work week starts by holding the shifting Monday practice a day earlier to Sunday.

That doesn’t mean Tucker believes there is “a light at the end of the tunnel” with camp. If the focus isn’t on the small details, he said, chances for improvement are being overlooked. Players can't get bored with fundamentals and look too far ahead.

"Every day is an opportunity to get better, so we're in the moment and present right now. (Monday) was important —we talked about starting fast. Start fast in the meetings, get in there, get your notebook out, it's ready to go, sit up, let's go. Start the meeting, everyone's paying attention, everyone's locked in. We get on the field, let's get out there, let's get after it. We're not gonna ease into it, we're not going to wait for something good to happen. We're just going to attack it. And we had that approach today."

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Senior safety Xavier Henderson said the attention to detail in the meeting rooms helps build a knowledge base for the players that has translated onto the field.

“I like playing with smart football players. It's fun,” he said. “And I think that's we've gotten better at just talking to each other and how we communicate.”

WMU is expected to name redshirt freshman Jack Salopek as its starting quarterback for the opener (7 p.m., ESPN). The Broncos are coming off an 8-5 season in which Salopek got a brief amount of work, including a late-game appearance during their win over Pitt near his hometown of Irwin, Pennsylvania.

That position isn’t a question in East Lansing, where Payton Thorne goes into his second season as the starter after guiding the Spartans to a 6-0 record at home a year ago.

But the changes happening under WMU’s new offensive coordinator, Jeff Thorne, Payton’s father, and whatever other wrinkles Broncos coach Tim Lester adds are some of the topics Tucker wants his players to think about once they game week rolls in.

“You got to prepare guys for 'this is what they've shown, this is what we know that's what they've done.' But it's the first game, so we don't know,” Tucker said. “You got to be able to apply your rules. The first game is the rules game — you gotta apply your rules and unwind it as you see what's on the field.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mel Tucker won't let Michigan State football look at WMU opener yet