Harlon Barnett made his first public appearance as interim Michigan State football<\/a> head coach on Tuesday afternoon. All of the quotes from the presser have been compiled from the live stream of the presser<\/a> and Lansing State Journal’s Graham Couch’s Twitter feed<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Barnett: “I want to be the head coach at Michigan State. But not in this way.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n He has not spoken with Mel Tucker since he was suspended. <\/span>He starts off by acknowledging that the team held a meeting on Sunday where he stated, \u201cThis is a determined group. \u2026 They’re still motivated and excited.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Barnett mentioned the first question he has asked players when meeting one-on-one with them, an effort he has been making since Sunday has been, “How’s the team?” To which he has received the answer, “We’re on a mission, and we’re going to complete this mission.” <\/span><\/p>\n Sad and angry have never come up. He stated that he has met with 27 players already, and plans to meet with another 20-plus today. His goal is to foster unity and make sure everyone is on the same page.\u00a0<\/span>He said that the players said they were ready to go and energized. The players-only meeting helped the team turn their focus to the coaching staff and the game on Saturday. <\/span><\/p>\n Not one player has approached him about redshirting, transferring mid-season, or \u201cshutting it down for the season\u201d — something that is important for player retention. It will be a question to revisit after the Maryland game, the four-game limit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Lastly, working under Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, and Mark Dantonio, Barnett states that his attention to detail and discipline are things he plans to use as the interim head coach. \u201cWere tough, were Spartans, were resilient. And for another term, I tell people all the time, \u2018I’m a dawg.\u2019 Well, push through this.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Interesting to note that Barnett, as a defensive backs coach, has faced Michael Penix Jr. before during his time at Indiana. <\/span>Credits Penix for his ability. <\/span><\/p>\n Barnett, who is still helping out with defensive backs, \u201cI love coaching DBs.\u201d Said that Saban, an inspiration for him, has never stopped coaching defensive backs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One interesting tidbit from the Tuesday press conference is that Barnett mentions the recruits and commits and the conversations that have been had between them and the coaches. He stated that he has talked to all of his defensive back recruits and that all other position coaches have talked to their respective commits. He plans to talk to all of them himself between now and Saturday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When asked about Mark Dantonio’s role, Barnett reiterated that he will be in a supportive role, and not so much there for the Xs and Os. Mentions that the elite staff is all about information, and listening to information from everyone. They are always open to listening to any suggestions Dantonio may have on the sideline.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One thing for certain that I gathered from the Tuesday Press conference, is that Barnett is nothing short of fired up. Seems to have embraced the opportunity with the quote, \u201cI am looking forward to this opportunity and coming week to \u2026 show what I’ve got.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n He sees this as an opportunity to audition for permanent Michigan State football head coach and feels \u201cit’s set up that way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Not really press conference related, but as some members of the Spartan media pointed out and provided images that pictured all posters with Mel Tucker have been taken down outside of the media room.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What did the interim head coach have to say?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":6718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[59,499,229,191,189],"class_list":["post-6810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-featured","tag-harlon-barnett","tag-mel-tucker","tag-michigan-state-football","tag-michigan-state-spartans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Harlon Barnett on being head coach and team morale<\/h3>\n
Barnett on preparing for Michael Penix Jr.<\/h3>\n
Barnett on recruiting<\/h3>\n
Barnett on Mark Dantonio’s role<\/h3>\n
Barnett on his mindset as interim HC<\/h3>\n
Other notes<\/h3>\n