Pat Fitzgerald is slowly making Spartan fans believe. The 2026 Michigan State football season is exactly seven days away from kicking off and the first-year head coach has sparked a new — yet familiar — feeling in East Lansing. There’s belief in the air again.
For the past three seasons, the program felt dead. Mel Tucker’s 2023 season drew next to no hype before he was fired and the subsequent Jonathan Smith years felt stale.
There was no hope or belief that the program could turn things around under those regimes.
Fitzgerald has brought a much different feel with him to East Lansing. He’s been much more energetic than Smith ever was and he is instilling that tough, hard-nosed attitude that was present during the glory days of Mark Dantonio. The new era has almost a Dantonio-like feel to it, and not just because Coach D has been hanging around practice a lot lately.
This new era has more and more people buying into his vision.
One popular college football personality from Barstool Sports, Liam Blutman, predicted Michigan State over Michigan as his biggest upset pick of the Big Ten season.
.@BFW and @Blutman27 make their Big 10 predictions pic.twitter.com/t2qVNdMovC
— Brandon Walker College Football Show (@BFWshow) August 27, 2026
We’re all believing and that’s thanks to Fitzgerald and the coaching staff that he’s assembled with budding stars like Max Bullough, Hank Poteat, and Courtney Hawkins.
An upset over Michigan isn’t that far-fetched, and this isn’t the first time that this prediction has been made for the 2026 season and it sure won’t be the last. It’s only a matter of a week or two before I’m talking myself into wins over Michigan and Washington later in the season.
Maybe it’s because he’s bringing back the Dantonio vibe or because Kyle Whittingham feels like a weird fit at Michigan, but the tides might be changing in the state.
A Year 1 Michigan State win over Michigan would change things drastically, and it’s looking doable.
Beating Michigan should be the expectation at Michigan State
During the Dantonio era, there was an expectation that Michigan State would beat Michigan every year, and in the rare instances in which the Wolverines won, it just didn’t feel right.
That needs to be the expectation once again.
It’s one thing to be competitive with the Wolverines (no moral victories here), but it’s another to put the rivalry in a stranglehold and make sure that it’s a win on the schedule every season.
For a while, Michigan State and Ohio State were doing that to Michigan, but roles have reversed lately and that’s unacceptable. The expectation needs to be “beat Michigan” and it feels like Michigan State finally has the right coach to accomplish that goal.
Plus, this year’s Michigan team led by Bryce Underwood is more than beatable.
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