Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast: Expectations for Jonathan Smith Fair?
Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith didn't have an ideal first season in East Lansing, but in Year 2, there's going to need to be improvement.
The Spartans have to make a bowl game, and that's the bare minimum. Michigan State hasn't made a bowl game since 2021, and that is far below the standard that this program should be held to.
The expectation for Smith next season is that he leads the Spartans to at least six wins. Is that a fair dealbreaker? Our Aidan Champion discusses it on this latest edition of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast.
You can watch the episode below:
Smith addressed the media following the Spartans' 14th spring practice last month. Below is a partial transcript of his opening statement:
Smith: "Well, let's start with wishing our gymnastics team good luck tonight, NCAA Championships. Wrapped up practice 14 today. We will get some work done on Saturday. Little bit of scrimmage in, little bit of practice in, but really, feel good about the work that we've gotten done over these last five weeks.
"Guys stayed into it, continued to work. So, will kind of wrap things up Saturday. We will turn it into family day, and so a bunch of families come back, watch it a little bit and breaking bread together after practice. So, I think it's a great way for us to at least finish it kind of as a program.
"Two scrimmages, I haven't talked to you since the last one. Got a lot of work done over the course of 95 snaps there last Saturday. Defensively, as a whole, I felt pretty good. The tackling, the effort, making it hard on the defense; the offense picked it up toward the end in the red zone. But I feel pleased with kind of that second scrimmage.
"Gives a bunch of work for a lot of guys and evaluation and guys getting better and feel good there. It's a critical part; you think about spring practice, critical part in kind of transitioning to the program, guys improving, diving into summer, we're going to have a big-time summer and all of that, getting ready for August camp already with that.
"Do want to mention, speaking of August, that we were going to kind of bring back 'Meet the Spartans' event in August. Looking for August 21 to do that, leading into our first home game. I learned a little bit of some of the tradition of that in meeting our group. So, more to come on the exact details of that. But we were trying to bring that back in August on the 21st."
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