LSU is looking for a new head football coach. One might have just gotten more difficult to hire.

Michigan State’s 37-33 win over Michigan on Saturday might have head coach Mel Tucker thinking that East Lansing, Mich., isn’t such a bad place to build a program. The fan support and environment around the rivalry on Saturday was outstanding. That could make it tougher for LSU, if the Tigers hope to hire him, according to Paul Finebaum on his podcast. The win over Michigan should only make him more beloved by the Spartans’ fan base.

That was the thinking of ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum on Sunday morning.

“He didn’t experience that last year because it was a terrible year and it was COVID,” Finebaum said on the ESPN College Football Podcast. “But he saw it yesterday, and again, I’m not enough of a Michigan State Spartan expert to know what turns people on up there. All I know is that they’ve had some really good coaches.”

Michigan State has had a strong run of coaches in its two primary sports: football and men’s basketball. Nick Saban was once the head coach of Michigan State before leaving to take the LSU job. Mark Dantonio kept the Spartans consistently good but not elite. Basketball coach Tom Izzo is widely considered one of the best coaches in college football.

“They had Saban a couple years ago,” Finebaum said. “Dantonio was really good until he was really bad at the very end, but for the most part he was a very consistent coach. And Tom Izzo has had one of the great basketball careers in history at that school. All I’m saying is it can be done (at Michigan State) and I think there’s maybe a little more likelihood after yesterday that he looked around and said, you know what, ‘I like where I am. I even like the weather here and I really like the fact that (Michigan coach) Jim Harbaugh is down the road.'”

Tucker has vast experience in the SEC with coaching stops at Alabama and Georgia. He also coached LSU’s defensive backs from 2001 to 2003. LSU is working on replacing Ed Orgeron. The two parties announced that they had agreed to what was called a “mutual separation” on Oct. 17. Tucker is one of the coaches LSU is expected to pursue.