Pregame Thoughts on Michigan State-Indiana
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Michigan State is a heavy, heavy underdog for this Saturday's game against No. 3 Indiana. Still, there are storylines aplenty for this matchup between the Spartans (3-3 overall, 0-3 Big Ten) and the Hoosiers (6-0, 3-0).
One of those is MSU head coach Jonathan Smith's job security. If Michigan State does poorly on Saturday, it does not seem outside the realm of possibility that he wouldn't be on the sidelines for the Spartans again.
If that were to happen, Smith would be MSU's shortest-serving permanent head coach since Harry Kipke, who only coached the 1928 season (going 3-4-1) before getting hired away by Michigan.
On this pregame edition of the Michigan State Spartans Insider Podcast, we talk about that possibility and some of the other overarching themes around this game.
Watch the MSU Spartans Insider Podcast here:
Also below is a partial transcription of Smith's Monday press conference, where he talked about this game against Indiana and MSU's 38-13 loss to UCLA.
Jonathan Smith
SMITH: We got back into the building (Sunday) and took a deep dive on things and really talked a lot about the halfway point. Let's face it, six games in, 3-3 (record), and coming off a loss that was not good enough, obviously.
And it led, on the leadership of this team, discussion of what we want this thing to look like moving forward, any potential issues we might have, and it was great. A lot of accountability amongst the team, responsibility, coaches included.
I thought it was a really healthy day in regards to taking a deep look at where (we need to improve). Call it a lack of execution at times, and some of the guys trying to do too much, wanting to make a play for the team type thing and get outside the responsibility, and we got exposed multiple times through that.
And so guys (were) kind of owning up, talking about it, tweaked a little bit of how we looked at the video. Offensively, they watched it all as a unit, not just breaking down into your individual positions.
I thought that was healthy in regards to guys taking accountability. 'I could do this better...' And then they went back to work, a little bit shorter, but went back on the field and addressed it and tried to make some corrections that way because we do.
We've got to play better. You think about us as coaches, myself to start, we've got to get this team playing to their potential, and that was well short on Saturday.
And so we look at reasons why that takes place and then think about considerations of changes; schematically, how you approach it, practice, personnel, the whole thing.
So I thought it was a really good Sunday, and we got to be able to transition because we know where we're headed to work (in Indiana). Maybe the best team, one of the best teams in the country, playing really, really good football at their place. That'll be a serious, serious challenge that we've got to get ourselves prepared for.
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Previous Episode - Final Predictions for Michigan State-Indiana
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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