The Michigan State football coaching staff is slowly coming together under Pat Fitzgerald, and the new head coach made a couple more hires on Saturday.
Fitzgerald has already hired Joe Rossi, Max Bullough, and James Adams to his defensive staff, and everyone is hoping for some news on the offensive side of the ball. That will likely come in the next week or so, but that hasn’t stopped him from addressing some other staff needs.
The Spartans are going to need to hire a quality staff to turn the program around after four straight bowl-less seasons.
So far, Fitzgerald is off to a nice start, but he’s working methodically.
Pat Fitzgerald hires 2 more staffers
While many of us were mentally preparing for a Michigan State basketball road game, Fitzgerald was making some key hires.
First, he hired former Northwestern director of football operations Jacob Schmidt to be his chief of staff. He spent 11 years at Northwestern as the director of football operations before working with the program’s NIL collective, per Justin Thind.
NEWS: #MichiganState has hired Jacob Schmidt as Pat Fitzgerald’s Chief of Staff, per sources.
— Justin Thind (@JustinThind) December 13, 2025
He was Northwestern’s director of football operations for almost 11 years, before spending the last 3 years leading NU’s NIL collective.
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This seems like a good hire, especially since he’s familiar with Fitzgerald. That familiarity is a positive, even if Northwestern wasn’t the most successful football program in the Big Ten.
Shortly after the Schmidt news was announced, Thind reported another important hire.
Fitzgerald made a big move to hire Joel Welsh away from Central Michigan as the program’s next strength and conditioning coach. He’s familiar with the Big Ten because he worked at Iowa for five years before going to Central Michigan.
SCOOP: #MichiganState is set to hire Joel Welsh as strength & conditioning coach, sources tell us & @mzenitz.
— Justin Thind (@JustinThind) December 13, 2025
He was Central Michigan’s director of sport performance and previously worked at Iowa from 2012-2016.
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Fans are now wondering when he will start working on the rest of his defensive assistants and his offensive staff. There are names being thrown around as potential hires at offensive coordinator, tight ends coach, and receivers coach, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see the new head coach decide to retain one or two more Jonathan Smith assistants.
Michigan State football is trending in the right direction, and while not many of his hires have been flashy, it feels like he’s getting guys that know the Big Ten and the Midwest — always a plus.