Former Michigan State football LB shares 4 interesting options to replace Jonathan Smith

Watching the product on the field on Saturday night was disappointing. Michigan State football struggled against in-state rival Michigan en route to a 31-20 loss.

Jonathan Smith’s seat was already warm, but now it’s scorching after an 0-2 start against Michigan as the Spartans’ head coach. He’s also just 8-12 overall over the first 20 games of his Michigan State coaching career which, well, it just isn’t good enough — he loves saying that.

Former players were unhappy with the product on the field and they took to social media to share that opinion. One of those former players was Chris Frey, a linebacker from the end of the Mark Dantonio era. He shared his list of potential Jonathan Smith replacements.

And it was interesting.

The obvious No. 1 here is Max Bullough. A lot of these former players look up to him and he’s a big reason why they decided to come to Michigan State as well. Bullough helped turn the program around in the early Dantonio days, and that made it a more attractive destination — especially for linebackers like Frey.

Getting Bullough back to lead the program would be an interesting move because he has no head coaching experience, but he looks like a bright young star at Notre Dame — and he’d be cheap.

Following Bullough, Frey liked the idea of Ohio State’s Brian Hartline, former Penn State head coach James Franklin, and former NFL coach Jon Gruden.

I don’t mind Frey’s list, but I doubt Bullough will get a shot unfortunately.