It's been a busy past two months for Jonathan Smith and Michigan State football as the first-year head coach (unfortunately) got a head start on his offseason.
After missing out on a bowl game due to a blowout at home in the final game of the regular season to Rutgers, Smith and Co. got to work on improving the roster outlook for 2025. The portal helped immensely as he landed 16 transfers while cutting some fat with departures as well.
On top of that, we saw Demetrice Martin leave the program for UCLA, taking a job closer to home, choosing to be near family instead of at his alma mater.
It took a little while, but Jonathan Smith found his replacement in former Wake Forest safeties coach James Adams and also added Jon Boyer (Oregon State's tight ends coach in 2025) as the team's quarterback coach.
Details of their contracts hadn't been made public until Wednesday and Stephen Brooks of 247Sports provided them.
According to Brooks, Adams will be on a two-year contract with a base salary of $425,000 in year one and that will go up to $500,000 in year two of his deal. As for Boyer, he will make $400,000 even in each year of his two-year deal.
These are both solid hires and both guys have been touted as great additions to the staff. Adams helped a couple of guys get drafted at Wake Forest last year and mentored the ACC's leading tackler this past season. Boyer spent time helping Smith's previous staff at Oregon State and helped out on offense and with quarterbacks prior to being moved to tight ends coach in 2024. Smith said that he's "really excited" about him joining the staff.
Michigan State's staff feels like it's gotten better this offseason, ever so slightly.