Another day, another big hire for Pat Fitzgerald and the Michigan State football program. The Spartan head coach has hired most of his defensive staff, his strength and conditioning coach, and his special teams coach, which means that he really only has to focus on the offensive side of the ball now — and a cornerbacks coach.
However, he made another splash hire on Thursday that doesn’t qualify for the offensive or defensive side of the ball — nor special teams. Although he did hire Iowa’s LeVar Woods which may be the best move he’s had yet, that’s not the hire that I’m talking about.
No, I’m talking about a hire that’s going to help recruiting.
On Thursday evening, news broke that Fitzgerald hired former Jason Candle assistant Bryan Gasser to be the program’s general manager. It sounds like a fairly routine hire, but this was much more impressive than the casual fan realizes.
And I’ll admit, I didn’t know much about Gasser before reading more about him, and I can say that I’m incredibly impressed with what he did at Toledo and also at Northwestern.
Candle thought so highly of him that he brought him to UConn with him when he was hired.
He’s not the only one who’s raved about Gasser, though.
The media is raving about Bryan Gasser’s work
When the news broke about Fitzgerald hiring Gasser, 247Sports’ Justin Thind quickly threw together a reaction piece with some research that he had done on the new general manager.
What he found was that Gasser has been one of the top talent evaluators in the Group of Five.
NEWS: #MichiganState is set to hire #Toledo general manager Bryan Gasser, sources tell us, @mzenitz & @AllenTrieu.
— Justin Thind (@JustinThind) December 19, 2025
During his stints at Toledo, they’ve been one of the best talent evaluators in the G5. He has also been a P4 position coach.
Read (FREE): https://t.co/vATeOCvf2X pic.twitter.com/UYQVKxpf82
Another media member spoke up about the hire, saying that he’s “so good with recruiting” and a college coach told Jordan Strack that he was born to be a GM.
Just got word that NW Ohio native Bryan Gasser is joining Michigan State football as their General Manager.
— Jordan Strack (@JordanStrack) December 19, 2025
He was the GM at Toledo for Jason Candle. He’s an unbelievable behind the scenes piece. So good with recruiting.
One college coach told me “He was born to be a GM.”
And another member of the media who covers the business side of college athletics, Kyle Rowland, said that it was a great hire and Gasser has been the “architect” of some of the highest-ranked Group of Five recruiting classes ever.
This is a great hire by Pat Fitzgerald. Gasser has been the architect of some of the highest-ranked G5 classes in history. Knows the Midwest inside and out. https://t.co/QAR8yyHUqa
— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) December 19, 2025
As if that wasn’t enough, there’s this Toledo Blade article from 2024 that talks about his recruiting evaluation success and how he’s been able to bring historic classes to Toledo.
UConn fans aren’t happy that Michigan State poached him, so that’s how you know it’s a good hire.