Jonathan Smith hasn’t exactly had the most memorable tenure with Michigan State. He was hired away from Oregon State before the 2023 season, and he got off to a hot start before stumbling to a 5-7 record and a third straight bowl-less season for the Spartans.
Smith then rebounded with a 3-0 start to begin the 2025 season, but it’s been nothing but doom-and-gloom since then, losing seven straight games.
It’s pretty clear that Smith is going to be let go at the end of the year, but there’s obviously a small chance he gets the Luke Fickell and and Mike Locksley treatment, getting another year to prove himself. But it’s been pretty clear the whole time that Smith didn’t have a ton of support from the people he needed support from.
He also gave a damning quote following his most recent loss to Penn State on Saturday evening, hinting that the Spartans’ previous athletic director, Alan Haller, let him down.
Jonathan Smith: "I did not know about the investigation when I took the Michigan State job."
— Emmett Matasovsky (@E_Matasovsky57) November 16, 2025
This is just a horrible look for Haller, especially since Michigan State was already undergoing an investigation with the NCAA about potential recruiting violations, and the former AD didn’t share that information with the coach he was about to hire.
Potentially facing sanctions and vacated wins, Smith may have thought differently about taking the job or would’ve approached it differently had he known the program could be facing penalties.
That’s just another sign that while Haller may have been a good guy and he was a likable person, he just wasn’t a good fit as an athletic director in East Lansing. Not disclosing information about an ongoing investigation to a coach you’re about to hire is just embarrassing.