Jonathan Smith may be directly on the hot seat in the middle of Hate Week, but not everything that has gone wrong this season has been the second-year Michigan State head coach’s fault.
While there are factors under his control like clock management, play-calling, and overall roster construction, others are out of his grasp like injuries and poor execution. He can coach his players up all he wants, but all it takes is a tweaked ankle or the wrong cut at the wrong time on a bad knee or an awkward fall on the wrong body part to change everything.
And that’s kind of what’s happened so far this season.
Smith has had to deal with more injuries than most college football coaches, and according to a new set of data with a grading scale, Michigan State is the sixth-most injured team in the nation.
From the inbox: According to Rotowire, Michigan State is tied for the sixth most injured team in college football. Their graphic and point scale below. pic.twitter.com/AmqxVHJlqq
— Connor Earegood (@ConnorEaregood) October 22, 2025
The grading scale reads: one point for “probable”, two points for “questionable”, three points for “doubtful”, five points for “out”, and 10 points for a player who’s out for the season. Well, Michigan State has a good chunk of players who have been listed as out for the year already.
Guys like Luka Vincic, Caleb Gash, Brady Pretzlaff, Andrew Brinson IV, Anelu Lafaele, and Ashton Lepo have all been ruled out for the season by Smith. That’s 60 points right there.
Alante Brown has been out for several weeks, as have Stanton Ramil, Tarik Ahmetbasic, Ade Willie, Marcllius Pulliam, and Kaden Schickel. That’s 25 more points. But I think the point total is misleading because Brennan Parachek, Kristian Phillips, and Jayden Savoury were also “out” against Indiana and Nikai Martinez and Grady Kelly were questionable.
If the grading scale is correct and it’s going off last week’s game, Michigan State would have 104 points and be the fourth-most injured team in the country.
This season has been a nightmare.