Harlon Barnett is officially a Spartan again after being hired as their new defensive backs coach on Thursday.
However, even though the former Michigan State All-American and assistant coach left the program to spend the last two seasons at Florida State, he never stopped being a Spartan.
“That’s who I am, I am green and white,” Barnett said during a Feb. 11 interview on The Drive With Jack, an online Lansing-based radio show. “I went down to Florida State – they’re garnet and gold but even they know down there I was green and white.”
Mark Dantonio announced his retirement on Feb. 4 after 13 seasons leading Michigan State and Mel Tucker was hired on Feb. 12 as his replacement, following one season at Colorado. In the interim, a large group of former players took to Twitter to endorse Barnett as Dantonio’s successor. Barnett obviously didn’t get the job as Tucker reached an agreement with the Spartans just hours after his interview on The Drive With Jack. However, he called the outpouring of support “humbling.”
“If nothing else, they know that Coach Barnett loves Michigan State and I am truly a Spartan Dawg,” Barnett said. “I told them how Spartan Dawgs got started, it was while we were there in the 1980s.”
Barnett, a 53-year-old Cincinnati native, was a three-year starter at defensive back for the Spartans under coach George Perles and part of the 1987 team that won the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl. He was named an All-American and team captain as a senior and went on to spend seven seasons in the NFL.
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Following the end of his playing days, Barnett started his coaching career at Princeton High School in Cincinnati. He got his start coaching in college when LSU coach Nick Saban hired him as a graduate assistant in 2003. When Dantonio left Ohio State to become the head coach at Cincinnati before the 2004 season, he hired Barnett as his secondary coach and brought him to East Lansing when he took over the Spartans three seasons later.
Barnett spent 11 seasons coaching Michigan State’s secondary. When Pat Narduzzi left to become the head coach at Pittsburgh after the 2014 season, Barnett and Mike Tressel were promoted to co-defensive coordinators and remained in those roles for three seasons.
On the same night Michigan State routed Washington State for a win in the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 28 in San Diego to cap the 2017 season with a 10-3 record, Barnett received a text message from a Florida State staffer, urging him to call. Barnett ignored it, celebrated the victory, then received the same text the following day as the Spartans were about to fly back from San Diego. This time he followed up and, a little more than a week later, signed a contract that more than doubled his salary to $980,000 to join the Seminoles as new coach Willie Taggart’s defensive coordinator. Barnett called the process a “whirlwind” and, in hindsight, would have proceeded differently.
“I still prayed on it and everything,” Barnett said, “but I would have slowed down the process a little bit more, probably did a little bit more investigating on the entire situation and then made a decision.”
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Barnett’s tenure at Florida State didn’t go well as Taggart was fired in November after posting a record of 9-12 overall. Barnett finished out the season but wasn’t retained by new coach Mike Norvell. The Seminoles ranked 80th in the nation in total defense in 2018 and 90th last year.
“Very tough, very, very tough,” Barnett said of his decision to leave Michigan State for Florida State. “It was out of nowhere, how that all came about. I do believe and I’m a spiritual person. … I do believe that it was a God thing. And I prayed on it hard and I believed that I needed to go down there and stretch myself. It didn’t turn out like we thought it would. But like my pastor says, ‘God never says oops.’ So, He wasn’t surprised by what happened down there, but we certainly were.”
A little more than 25 months after Barnett left Michigan State for Florida State, he was at the Spartans’ basketball game on Saturday at the Breslin Center, sitting with assistant coaches Mike Tressel and Ron Burton, who are two carryovers from Dantonio’s staff retained by Tucker. And just five days after that, he was officially a Spartan again.
“I've known Harlon Barnett for more than 20 years,” Tucker said in a university press release. “He's a fantastic coach and recruiter, and really connects with his players. He's a man of character and family is very important to him. He's a true Spartan and we're happy to have him back here in East Lansing.”
Michigan State’s image, both as a university and football program, has taken a significant beating in recent years. The Larry Nassar scandal continues to linger, there were four football players kicked off the team in 2017 after being charged with sexual assault and former program staffer Curtis Blackwell is suing Dantonio and others for wrongful termination and unlawful arrest while alleging potential NCAA violations, which the university is investigating.
That could make Michigan State a bit of tough sell at this point to recruits, but Barnett believes he knows how to pitch it.
“I would start out by telling them it’s a lot of great people at Michigan State, and just being real because that’s how I am and at this point in time, Michigan State has taken some hits and people would say that – if the elephant’s in the room, I’m going to call the elephant out,” Barnett said. “So I’m going to tell you it’s a great place with a lot of great people, don’t always believe everything that you read or hear, come see for yourself.”
In addition to being a standout player at Michigan State, Barnett’s tenure as an assistant coach included the Spartans posting a record of 100-45 and winning three Big Ten titles. He helped shape a strong secondary dubbed the “No Fly Zone” with first-round NFL draft picks. Barnett met his wife, Tammy, at Michigan State’s Case Hall in 1985. Their children, Todd and Tori, both graduated from Michigan State.
“We’re all Spartans,” Barnett said, “and we all bleed green and white.”
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