Here’s an Emerging Name on Fitzgerald’s Initial MSU Staff
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The early days of the Pat Fitzgerald era at Michigan State are going on right now.
Spring ball doesn't begin for another month or so, but the whole team, minus the non-early enrollees in the 2026 recruiting class, is together and going through winter workouts. One person on the staff is of particular interest during this period: new strength and conditioning coach Joel Welsh Jr. (who is pictured in the top-right photo below).
First TEAM meeting of the year ✅ pic.twitter.com/JLTk8S7MsY
— Michigan State Football (@MSU_Football) January 12, 2026
Welsh was previously at Central Michigan since 2019, but he had also held a head strength job at Delaware State for a few years before that and was an assistant strength and conditioning job at Iowa for five seasons before that. According to a copy of his contract, obtained through a public records request, Welsh is on a three-year deal with MSU that pays him an average of $425,000 per year, which is more than some position coaches.
Fitzgerald and the Spartans are paying Welsh like he's an important part of the staff, because he is. Last week, Fitzgerald expanded on Welsh's role and how he landed on him as the primary candidate for the S&C job.
Fitz on Welsh
Obviously, Welsh's main job is to make his players as strong and capable to go out and compete at a Big Ten level as possible. But sometimes there is more to the job than that. Fitzgerald has talked a lot about developing great men, as well as great football players. Plus, the development of a great culture is also important to any team, which also requires great people inside the football building.
"We're using Wednesdays kind of as an opportunity for us to talk and educate our guys about what our values are, how we want to define those, [and] what our expectations are around those values," Fitzgerald said last week. "We're kind of through three of the 10 right now [as of Feb. 4], and Joel Welsh, our strength coach, is leading those talks on Wednesdays and really just trying to instill what we want and how we want it done within the guys here in this first phase of building this team. And I believe it's going very, very well to this point."
There's a way that Fitzgerald seems to know that these culture-setting talks are going well.
"We kind of give them an exit ticket as they're leaving the meeting, going through and evaluating what we're talking about, what they've learned, what they've heard," Fitzgerald said. "It's resonating with the guys."
Then there is the actual workouts. Michigan State's official football accounts have posted several photos and videos on social media, but that's always just a positive snapshot of what's going on. Fitzgerald is projecting that the numbers are speaking for themselves.
"Those [new] guys have been here for a little over right around a month, working with Coach Welsh and our strength staff," he said. "We had a team meeting this morning, and I asked everybody to raise their hand, 'Whose gained weight?' Everybody's hand went up. 'Whose added strength?' Everybody's hand went up."
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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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