Michigan State's Top Coaches Stay United After Batt's Exit
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EAST LANSING, Mich. --- More drama in the administration is not giving Michigan State's three biggest coaches any second thoughts.
The Spartans have head coaches in place that they feel good about. Pat Fitzgerald is still brand-new, Tom Izzo is the face of the university and a Hall of Famer, and Adam Nightingale has won three straight Big Ten regular-season hockey titles. Athletic director J Batt's decision to leave MSU for Kentucky isn't affecting them very much.
"Let's Go"
"I love my football coach and my hockey coach," Izzo said on Monday while talking about Batt's decision. "They were the first two guys to call me last week. Their words were, 'Let's go.'"
Fitzgerald is the person put in the most awkward situation in all of this, because Batt and outgoing president Kevin Guskiewicz had only hired him about six months prior. Izzo and Nightingale don't truly owe nearly as much to Batt or Guskiewicz since they were both hired to their posts before either of them arrived on campus.
Athletic director changes aren't a new concept to Fitzgerald, either. The person who promoted him to head coach at Northwestern, Mark Murphy, left to become the president and CEO of the Green Bay Packers following Fitzgerald's second season in charge of the Wildcats. The eventual permanent replacement, Jim Phillips, became the ACC commissioner in 2021.
Having your AD leave before you've coached a game is a bit of a unique situation, though. Football coaching hires are one of the things that define an athletic director's tenure somewhere. The right hire can make you a beloved figure, and the wrong one can get you fired. Batt is leaving before a single real data point has come in.
"Everything I was talked to about in the process of coming here is all aligned and ready to go," Fitzgerald said in an interview with WILX. "Yeah, I'll have a couple of new leaders, but it's not my first time going through this. I know what my role is and am ready to do my part to get Spartan football back where it belongs."
Fitzgerald also corraborated Izzo's story that the top coaches at the school were quickly in touch after Batt's decision went public.
"I talked to Tom right away last week," he said. "I told him I'm in a foxhole here. I'm ready to go, and I can't wait to get the season started."
Nightingale hasn't publicly spoken since Guskiewicz and Batt's plans to leave were announced. Regardless, all the changes at the top of the food chain at Michigan State shouldn't impact the futures of Fitzgerald, Izzo, or Nightingale much.
Why Batt, Guskiewicz Departures Dont' Impact 'Big 3'
One of the main reasons why there is really no need to worry is that Batt's move to Kentucky doesn't impact the top coaches' contracts. Clauses that cut buyouts for the coach or administrator to leave are not that uncommon.
Both Batt and former head football coach Jonathan Smith had them. Potentially, one of the main reasons why Batt hasn't officially left his post at MSU yet is that Guskiewicz is still technically the president. Once he departs for Clemson, Batt's buyout from his deal (anticipated to be paid for by Kentucky) drops from $5 million to $2.5 million. That difference is more than a year's salary for Batt at Michigan State.
Smith never performed well enough with the Spartans to leverage himself into a new job, but his buyout was also cut in half when MSU opted to fire Alan Haller. Alignment between the president, AD, and coach is a very important thing these days. Plenty of coaches are willing to put an exit strategy into writing in the event that gets disrupted.
The good news here is that there are no such clauses in the contracts of Fitzgerald, Izzo, or Nightingale. Fitzgerald is the only person who was hired by Guskiewicz and Batt, anyway, but there is no mention of a discounted buyout if either one of them were to leave.
Izzo and Nightingale are both on contracts that automatically extend themselves every year. Both of them are on rolling five-year deals and are both set to have their automatic extensions kick in on June 30.
The university can stop these automatic extensions from happening, but has to inform both coaches by mid-April. There is also hardly any reason to stop them, with Izzo and Nightingale both enjoying plenty of success right now.
Nightingale actually also gets a $300,000 retention bonus every June 30. Izzo gets the option to retire and become the school's "Special University Advisor to the President." He'd actually get to enjoy his current $7.2 million salary in that role for a year before having it drop to a more cool $750,000 afterwards.
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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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