Hearing Jonathan Smith’s plea to allow him more time to develop players following a seventh straight loss on Saturday was like nails on a chalkboard to Michigan State football fans.
The last thing fans wanted to hear was Smith lobbying for more time, especially after another lifeless loss, but he had to at least attempt to show he still cares.
It feels like J Batt is ready to make a move, but Smith will likely be able to coach out the rest of the season with his players. It wouldn’t make a huge difference if he was fired now compared to following the Maryland game at Ford Field in a couple of weeks.
There have been a lot of names floating around from fans and college football experts regarding the potential open job in East Lansing. One of those names is Pat Fitzgerald.
Although Fitzgerald hasn’t coached a game in a few years, he’s still one of the more respected coaches produced by the Big Ten in recent memory, but the way he left Northwestern was a little concerning. Plus, his final couple of years there were disastrous.
Still, there are many people who think he’d be a good fit in East Lansing. They believe that he’s in the Mark Dantonio cut of head coaches who have old-school, hard-nosed personalities.
According to a coaching carousel intel report on CBS Sports, Fitzgerald wants to get back into coaching, and it looks like he wants to stay in the Big Ten. The job mentioned in the report was Michigan State, seeing as it’s the only one likely to have an opening for him to fill that would make sense — I doubt he’d be pursued by Penn State.
I’m still unsure of how to feel about Fitzgerald. I do think he’d do well with more resources (it’s night and day from Northwestern to Michigan State), but I don’t know if he’d be able to truly adjust to the new era of NIL and the transfer portal — he struggled mightily at the end of his Wildcat tenure.
But hey, change is a start.