Former Spartans Football Player Demetrice Martin Returns to Michigan State as a Coach

Former Michigan State defensive back Demetrice Martin hadn’t been back to East Lansing since his senior year at MSU in 1995. Nearly 30 years later, Martin returned to campus, this time as the cornerbacks coach under Michigan State’s new head coach, Jonathan Smith. Martin says he immediately felt at home upon his return.

“You can definitely feel the home welcome warming here,” Martin said. “It’s a great place and a great feeling to be appreciated and be anticipated to help things get better.”

Martin coached at many different schools on the West Coast and even faced Smith while at rival schools, Oregon and Oregon State. Martin says their battles against each other helped grow their appreciation for each other.

“We always had a connection there, so it was easy for me, knowing Coach Smith and his history of being a real family guy, real business-orientated,” Martin said. “He’s a guy that’s always three steps ahead in whatever he’s doing. He’s always been known like that. Going against him at Oregon State just recently, it was always a big gameplan week. He put a lot of stress on us as a defense.”

Martin says he looks forward to working with new Michigan State defensive coordinator Joe Rossi, who left Minnesota to join Michigan State.

“It’s awesome, it’s kind of like we mix and match,” Martin said about Rossi. “Blue coaches all positions, and I coach all positions. Getting the knowledge from him, knowing that he’s been working for Coach Smith a long time and knowing what Coach Smith expects and stuff like that, he’s just a knowledge well for me. I just kind of dig in his back pocket, and he digs in my back pocket, and we kind of trade ideas and trade techniques because I used to go against him a lot as far as in recruiting, on the field, and those type of things.”

Coach Smith, Martin, and the rest of Michigan State’s coaching staff have had difficulty navigating the transfer portal, which hasn’t been kind to the Spartans. However, Martin soon will have a better idea of what the Spartans’ defensive back room will look like. He plans to help MSU return to its former glory in football.

“It’s like the wild, wild NCAA with the portal stuff so we don’t know how it’s going to be,” Martin said last month of his outlook at cornerback before the most recent transfer departures, “so I’ll hold pause until we get to fall camp and we’ve got a full team.”

“That is the goal, to restore that level of excellence in the back end,” Martin said. “We want to cover guys, we’re going to hit guys, and we’re going to run around and have a lot of fun doing it. We’ve got to get the guys in to do that.”

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