Back when Michigan State football was looking for its next head coach in 2023 after firing Mel Tucker, several former players, and a portion of the fanbase, rallied around Harlon Barnett and stood in his corner as the top option to be the Spartans' leader.
Unfortunately, Barnett's interim tenure did not prove enough to anyone to keep him on board and remove the interim tag, making him the program's next head coach.
Alan Haller went in a different direction. He went outside of the program completely, kept some key donors in the dark, and hired Jonathan Smith away from Oregon State. Yes, he decided to veer away from a coach who knows the Midwest and understands the rivalry against Michigan to hire a West Coast guy who had only been the head coach of a mid-sized Pac-12 program.
At the time, it was lauded as one of the best hires of the offseason because Smith is a good coach. I stand by that belief, but I just think he's an awful fit in East Lansing. He's a West Coast guy who thrived at a smaller program in a smaller conference. He's just not a Big Ten coach -- not his fault.
Fast forward to the 2025 season, and fans are ready to move on from Smith as the experiment has very clearly failed with Michigan State sitting at 3-5 after five straight losses, and two straight rivalry defeats against Michigan under the second-year coach.
A new coach is needed.
While fans can give their opinions all they want, they really have no say in who becomes the program's next head coach. Former players, however, might be listened to a little more.
That's why when all of them seem to bring up one common name, you have to at least listen.
Max Bullough has been on darn near every former player's short list of candidates, including guys like DeAnthony Arnett, Matt Seybert, Trae Waynes, Taiwan Jones, and Lawrence Thomas.
Most of those guys played with him. Waynes, Jones, Arnett, and Thomas were all teammates with Bullough, and if they're saying he should lead the program, maybe it's important that we all take their opinion seriously. They were all part of Michigan State's last successful era back before 2016, and they know that Max can bring that success back to East Lansing. He knows what it takes.
It's hard to say that Bullough would be a bad fit, especially since he's a fast-riser in the coaching ranks at Notre Dame and he would probably put together a great staff (likely with some Spartan legends) and he could recruit well. He would also bring that hard-nosed defensive culture back.
Michigan State needs that.
So maybe we give in this time and listen to the guys who gave their all to this program about a decade ago, and bring back Max Bullough. He's the current fan favorite to take the MSU job if Smith is fired.