The Jonathan Smith era of Michigan State football has officially come to a close, and J Batt will now be repsponsible for hiring his replacement. This is going to be a critical decision for the future of the program which has fallen off since the 2021 season.
The once-proud program hasn’t made a bowl game since that magical 2021 season with Kenneth Walker III leading the way, but there are enough resources and there’s enough support in East Lansing to ensure that the next head coach is successful. The goal is to get back to the top of the Big Ten and contend for titles, and the next coach must do that.
Before we can really get into replacements — which we’ve already done plenty of — we should show Smith some respect and reflect on his tenure in East Lansing.
Let’s give his tenure a grade, shall we?
If we go by the last two coaches in East Lansing, Mark Dantonio obviously gets an A despite his tenure ending on a sour note, but he’s a legend and took Michigan State to new heights. Mel Tucker has to get a C- because while he did have an 11-win season, he was surrounded by controversy on his way out and left the program in a bad place.
Now, onto Smith.
What grade would I give Smith’s tenure? It would also have to be a C/C- because he just didn’t win enough even though players seemed to like him, he recruited top-30 classes, and he was an overall good guy. He probably would have eventually found success at Michigan State, but programs this big just don’t have 4-5 years to rebuild. You fall behind in that time. If Michigan State had Oregon State’s expectations, keeping him for another year would’ve been a no-brainer. But this is not Oregon State.
Michigan State fans liked Smith as a person, but he just didn’t mesh with the program’s hard-nosed culture. He just never showed the emotion that everyone wanted to see from a coach. He watched multiple games slip away from him in the fourth quarter and he had the same emotionless expression on his face. Fans want more fire.
Smith will land on his feet somewhere else, but his time at Michigan State will not be remembered fondly.
Final grade of the Jonathan Smith era: C-