As expected, Michigan State football dropped to 3-7 on Saturday evening after a loss to Penn State, doing what has become the norm under Jonathan Smith: crumbling in the fourth quarter.
I say “as expected” not because Michigan State should be used to this level of mediocre play, but because nothing has changed in the Smith era. From Week 1 of 2024 until Week 12 of 2025, Michigan State has been pretty much the same team: a team with a struggling offense, defense that gets worn down from trying to make up for the offense’s struggles, and one that has had horrible play in the trenches.
Each game during the Smith era has felt like Groundhog’s Day. There’s an encouraging start, followed by a decent lull throughout the second and third quarters, but they manage to still hang around, and then something happens in the fourth quarter that leads to a new, interesting way to lose.
After a seventh straight loss to drop to 3-7 on the year, fans were hoping for some good news after the game about potentially moving on from Smith, but it just doesn’t make a major difference if you do it now as opposed to after the final game, and then the players still have some structure under their head coach.
I also witnessed many fans on social media saying things like “fold the program” or “we are just never going to be good again” or “we’re back to being a basketball school”.
All normal overreactions during a disappointing season.
But these felt different. There was some seriousness behind some fans saying that Michigan State was doomed to be irrelevant forever because Smith had yet to be fired and because of the three-year probation, reduction in recruiting opportunities, and vacated wins.
Michigan State fans have to know better than to just be OK with giving up on football for the foreseeable future. The program is better than that — and they never want to admit it.
Michigan State is a top 25 program in college football history with a rich recent history under Mark Dantonio where he proved that the Spartans can win big in the 21st century. Heck, he was going toe-to-toe with Urban Meyer, and winning. He proved that the program deserves to be in the conversation as one of the best in the Big Ten annually.
So let’s stop assuming that Michigan State can’t hang anymore and acting like a scared-to-compete program that will just hire a mediocre, cheap coach and will just slip even further into irrelevance.
Former players and coaches worked to hard to avoid this mindset.