A decade ago, Michigan State coach Mel Tucker seemed to be on track to eventually become an NFL head coach. He ultimately became uncomfortable with interview opportunities that, to him, seemed to be not genuine shots at getting a head-coaching job at the pro level.
For Tucker, the suspicion arose during his first interview, and it continued with each subsequent opening for which he was considered.
“I interviewed for the Browns job in 2008 after they let Romeo [Crennel] go, and I’m like, ‘Is this a Rooney interview, or are they really considering me?’" Tucker told Cork Gaines of Insider.com. “Do I have a shot? And they’re telling you, ‘Yeah, really, we’re not gonna waste your time. Like, the players love you, man. You’re a great coach. Our defense got better.’”
Tucker suspected it was an interview aimed mainly at complying with the rule requiring all teams to interview at least one minority coaching candidate.
"[I thought] I was in,” Tucker told Gaines. “I was already there. I was in-house. I was right there. I knew [former Browns owner] Randy Lerner. He’s a Shaker Heights guy. I’m a Cleveland Heights guy. What, what was that? Was that a Rooney or what?”
Tucker said he suspected a similar situation in Jacksonville after the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
“So, I interview in Jacksonville after being an interim head coach,” Tucker told Gaines. “Was that a Rooney, or did I really have a shot at that job? Then the next year, they want to interview me again after they fired [Mike] Mularkey after one season. . . . And I said, ‘Hey, man, I’m not interviewing for this job. Like, I don’t have to. I’m not getting this job. We were terrible. I didn’t get it after last year. You want me to interview again?’ I’m like, I’m not interviewing.”
Former Fritz Pollard Alliance executive director John Wooten eventually persuaded Tucker to interview for the Jaguars job a second time.
“You’ve got this pressure, you got this thing, like you never know [if it is just a Rooney Rule interview],” Tucker told Gaines. “How many of those interviews do you want to take? Because you have to prepare for the interview, obviously. But plus, like, you don’t want to get turned down for the job either, right?”
That’s the problem for minority candidates who are invited to interview under circumstances suggesting that the team is simply checking a box. Do they go along to get along, thinking that eventually they’ll get hired? Or do they risk becoming a chronic runner-up who can never get a job, as a stream of rejections becomes an impediment to winning a head-coaching job?
After two years with the Bears as defensive coordinator, Tucker went to Alabama in 2015. By 2019, he became the head coach at Colorado. A year later, the Spartans hired him. A 12-2 season made him the Big 10 coach of the year, and it secured for Tucker a 10-year, $95 million contract.
Maybe, if he keeps performing as he has, he’ll eventually get a real and genuine head-coaching interview with an NFL team. Maybe, based on his own experiences, he’ll respectfully decline.
