Traditions are big at Michigan State and they’ve escaped the last two coaching staffs before Pat Fitzgerald. Fans are hopeful that Fitzgerald will lean into the traditions as he begins his first season in East Lansing.
That’s a fair concern when they’ve witnessed the past two coaching staffs take what Mark Dantonio built and run it into the ground. They had the blueprint right in front of them and they ignored it.
Fitzgerald is not going down the same road.
How do I know this? His quote regarding Michigan State traditions at Big Ten Media Days tells the whole story. He’s not naive to what needs to be done. He delivered the perfect quote.
Pat Fitzgerald on leaning into Michigan State tradition: "I was born at night but not last night. I know what I'm doing. The blueprint is there."
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) July 29, 2026
He gets it. Fitzgerald knows that the groundwork was laid a decade ago when Dantonio was still in charge and it felt like Mel Tucker and Jonathan Smith were taking axes to it — outside of that magical 2021 season. Fitzgerald doesn’t have to do a ton of research in order to figure out what works at Michigan State and how carrying on traditions has a lot to do with the program’s success.
Tradition is something that Michigan State has always prided itself on, and Fitzgerald is keen on one of the most important aspects of it: toughness.
“We got to put toughness back on tape. We have to put the fear of coming into that arena back on tape”
— Fireball sommelier (@Sheehan_Sports) July 29, 2026
Fitz on Big Ten Network just now. He is playing THE HITS and I am fully buying into it.
If these quotes aren’t firing you up for the Fitzgerald era, you might not have a pulse. This is going to go down as one of those hires that flew under the radar for some reason, but the fact that it was a home run was right in front of everyone’s eyes.
Pat Fitzgerald knows what it takes
Fitzgerald was big on talking about how he’s not new to this and he knows that it’s going to take all hands on deck, but he delivered another great quote about bringing MSU back to the top.
He’s coached for over a decade in the Big Ten, he knows the Midwest like the back of his hand and he’s forged plenty of great relationships with high school coaches, he was a big fan of Dantonio (and vise versa), and he wanted this job more than anything. Fitzgerald isn’t going to take a thing for granted and he has the perfect personality for Michigan State and the East Lansing community.
I’d be more shocked if Fitzgerald didn’t get Michigan State to 10 wins regularly than I would be if he did.
Have you noticed that several rivals have raved about Fitzgerald and you don’t see many rival fans hating on the hire? It’s because he’s earned respect from his Northwestern days. He turned a program that didn’t have a pulse on the football field into one that went to a bowl game 10 times under his control and won eight-plus games six (!!) times. He won 110 games over his 17-year career at a program with an all-time win percentage of .444.
For reference, He accounts for almost 20 percent of the wins in Northwestern history. Before him, Northwestern went to six bowl games ever. He’s responsible for 12 of the 16 all-time bowls games, if you count his time as a player.
All this dude does is win. And he’s going to win at Michigan State.
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