![]() ![]() The Spartans lost an 11-game starter in Ameer Speed, who exhausted his eligibility as a sixth-year senior, but bring back Charles Brantley, now a junior, and a sophomore in Dillon Tatum who started in place of Speed in the regular-season finale. What he didn’t know was exactly what type of material he’d be inheriting in MSU’s cornerbacks room. After being fired by the Buffalo Bills after six seasons with the franchise, all of them alongside Frazier, Salgado said he had immediate interest in the position once Tucker reached out about the opening. ![]() He also knew head coach Mel Tucker, who served as the de facto cornerbacks coach last season, through a connection to longtime NFL coach Leslie Frazier. Salgado knew what he was walking into with Barnett, who he’d befriended in those previous pilgrimages to MSU, and that was important given the cooperative nature of their roles. “For me, it was, OK, I gotta pick up what’s going on, what’s already in and getting to know the players and what they could do.” “I think I got here on a Friday, late afternoon, and we were practicing Saturday morning,” Salgado said. The timing of his arrival, near the end of the Spartans’ first week of spring practice, demanded urgency on several levels – with his roster, with the system implemented by defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton, with his new surroundings. It became reality for Salgado as of March 16, when MSU formally announced his hiring to fill the vacancy created by pass rush specialist Brandon Jordan’s departure to the Seattle Seahawks. “I used to say ‘This would be a pretty neat place to coach.” “That’s where I first came here to this campus and saw everything. He also left with a sense of appreciation for the place that now pays his salary. MSU’s new cornerbacks coach didn’t just take the teachings of Narduzzi, defensive backs coach Harlon Barnett and head coach Mark Dantonio back to New Jersey with him. ![]() Salgado got to see the inner workings of the modern golden era of defensive back play at MSU. Along with safeties Kurtis Drummond and RJ Williamson, among others, the secondary became the backbone of a ferocious defense that gave the Spartans a brand that was respected – and feared – from coast to coast. Indeed they were, with Darqueze Dennard manning one cornerback spot, eventually becoming MSU’s first Jim Thorpe Award winner, and Trae Waynes, who would follow Dennard to the NFL as a first-rounder a year later, on the opposite side. “Obviously, things were rolling at that time,” Salgado said. He could only glean so much from film, so when he had some spare time, he made a couple of trips to East Lansing to see what was under the hood. While Salgado didn’t have the same kind of budding NFL talent at his Ivy League program, he did operate in a similar scheme, and what then-defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi was cooking up piqued his curiosity. He became such a fan of what would become the vaunted “No Fly Zone” defense, spearheaded by two future first-round draftees at cornerback, he yearned for a closer look. In his early years as a defensive assistant at Princeton, Jim Salgado admired what Michigan State was doing on that side of the ball from afar. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |