Jonathan Smith is feeling the pressure these days.
With one game remaining in the 2025 season, there’s likely nothing he can do to really win over the fanbase other than beating Maryland by double-digits and signing a top 25 recruiting class before dominating the portal. That would be the only thing that would make fans even slightly OK with the idea of him returning for a third season.
However, he feels like he can fix things in Michigan State despite the program looking incredibly broken. The current state of Michigan State football is bad, and it’s seemingly only getting worse.
Smith doesn’t believe that would be the case if he was brought back for the 2026 season, and he’s even said that he understands the frustration with the losses, and he’s frustrated, too, but in today’s landscape of college football, you have to prove you can turn things around in the first year or two.
He hasn’t done that.
During his weekly presser, though, Smith was asked if he’s confident that he can turn the program around, and his answer wasn’t surprising, but he was pretty matter-of-fact about it.
Jonathan Smith when asked if he’s confident on turning the program around.
— Kenny Jordan (@Kenny_Jordan5) November 24, 2025
“Yeah, 100%, again, been through some tough times before, both as a previous head coach in the spot, as an assistant of some of the momentum culturally where we're actually really confident, I think we…
These are the types of answers that make fans think twice about wanting him gone. He did show at Oregon State that it’s going to take some time if you do it his way, but he also wasn’t making the egregious coaching mistakes in Corvallis that he’s made in East Lansing. It’s almost like he forgot how to manage late-game and late-half situations.
While he may not show it, his confidence in turning things around seemingly hasn’t wavered. When he talks to the media, he sounds confident that he could fix the program if he’s given more time.
Time, however, is something that Michigan State fans don’t want to dole out, especially after the final two years of Mel Tucker really ran the program into the ground. Patience is wearing thin, and Smith has worn out his welcome in East Lansing, but he is still hopeful that he’s given another shot.
It’s a tough situation. Do you give the proven turnaround coach a third year to prove himself, risking another year of mediocrity and further irrelevance, or do you make the change despite not having many home run hires on the market?
The program is stuck between a rock and a hard place.