Fitzgerald’s Big Change Shows How He Differs From Smith
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Think about those elite Mark Dantonio teams for a little bit. What were some of the characteristics of those teams?
Now think about the adjectives that can be used to describe the program since with Mel Tucker (sans 2021) and Jonathan Smith. Not many overlap.
One of the biggest complaints about the Smith era, particularly, was that the fit was not there. Smith had never coached or played in the Big Ten or around the Midwest at all. That can be said about several key assistants he brought with him from Oregon State.
The fanbase never felt like Smith fully understood what MSU was about. Animosity towards Michigan never seemed to come out of his mouth. His calm and collected approach on the sideline was interpreted to be a lack of caring or passion (that will happen when your emotions later in the year are juxtaposed with Tom Izzo at the beginning of his season).
Why Fitzgerald is Different
There's no way to know just yet how the Pat Fitzgerald era will go. But there is one thing that is absolutely true so far. He's going to do it with people around him who know the Big Ten and know the Midwest.
Every single hire from Fitzgerald has strong Midwestern ties. For Michigan State to get back to winning again, it needs to firmly understand and control the part of the country where people call it "pop" or say "ope."
Just go down the list. Let's do offense first. Offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan is from the Ann Arbor area and played quarterback at Michigan (nobody's perfect!) and had a stint at Indiana.
Wide receivers coach Courtney Hawkins is one of the best receivers in program history and coached high school football in Michigan before joining the MSU staff. Tight ends coach Brian Wozniak is from Ohio and played for Wisconsin.
Now for the defense. Defensive coordinator Joe Rossi has been coaching Big Ten football since he was at Rutgers during the school's first year in the conference in 2014. Co-DC and linebackers coach Max Bullough was an elite Spartan linebacker himself and was just at Notre Dame.
Defensive line coach Winston DeLattiboudere III played for and coached with Rossi at Minnesota. Safties coach James Adams has had previous stops at Western Michigan and Purdue.
There's more. Special teams coordinator LeVar Woods has been at Iowa for decades, as a player and a coach. General manager Bryan Gasser helped make Toledo into the biggest recruiting powerhouse in the MAC, was an offensive coordinator at Akron, and coached wide receivers for Iowa State.
This type of trend has to have some intentionality behind it. Another encouraging part is that Fitzgerald is not just hiring all of his old friends from Northwestern, but he is also hiring truly qualified candidates for these roles. Michigan State invested heavily to make sure Fitzgerald had a lot of freedom to pick his top candidates, arming him with a $12.12 million annual budget for his assistant coaching staff.
Fitzgerald's early recruiting efforts have spoken to his focus on the Midwest and Michigan as well. Every couple of days, a couple of offers or conversations with top recruits from around the state seem to pop up.
Location is not as much of a factor in recruiting anymore, with air travel and video calling being more accessible, but Michigan State only landed two of the state's top 20 recruits this cycle, according to 247Sports. It might end up being one (No. 9 quarterback Kayd Coffman) if fifth-ranked wide receiver Samson Gash ends up signing elsewhere in February, which is a real possibility.
For reference, 10 years ago, in 2016, MSU landed four of the state's top 10 recruits. Program success, of course, could have a hand in that, since the Spartans had just made the College Football Playoff that year. Either way, top recruits in the state are leaving the region now. There are players in the top 20 of this year's class from Michigan who are going to Georgia, North Carolina, Pitt, Virginia Tech, Missouri, and Kentucky.
Let's face it. Michigan State is not a program that is going to waltz into Texas or Florida or California and go get a five-star recruit. Maybe someday it can reach that point, but the Spartans have to win games first and build their national prestige back up. That requires getting people into the building who truly want to see the program get to that point.
In this writer's opinion, I think MSU is on the right track. Fitzgerald showed loyalty to Northwestern for so many years, and I think he'll show it to Michigan State. On the player level, loyalty only goes so far in the NIL and revenue-sharing era, but there are still recruits and players out there who grew up watching the Spartans beat Michigan over and over again and saw MSU participate in elite bowl games.
We'll see if Fitzgerald can bring the "good ol' days" back. Lots of work has to be done, but the early returns are promising.
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A 2025 graduate from Michigan State University, Cotsonika brings a wealth of experience covering the Spartans from Rivals and On3 to his role as Michigan State Spartans Beat Writer on SI. At Michigan State, he was also a member of the world-renowned Spartan marching band for two seasons.
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