It’s been a weird past 24 hours, or so, in the state of Michigan. The Wolverines hired a 66-year-old head coach and somehow Michigan State and Pat Fitzgerald continue to take strays from the national media over recent coaching hires.
Michigan nearly botched a coaching search and landed on a coach who was leaving Utah at the end of the season because he felt like he wore out his welcome while Michigan State hired a coach who was eager to get back into the game and he’s more motivated than ever to succeed.
The Wolverines did make a solid hire. Kyle Whittingham is a good coach, but he’s 66 and that’s obviously going to play a factor. Michigan State, too, made a solid hire, but yet the national media is busy bashing the Spartans for every move they make.
Fitzgerald was already ripped for his offensive coordinator hire, and now he’s being torn into by the media for hiring UMass offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian as his quarterbacks coach.
Me on @Cover3Podcast
— Bud Elliott (@BudElliott3) December 27, 2025
“Hard to grade the Fitz hire. Will he expand outside his coaching tree? His last three non-Covid seasons at Northwestern were a disaster.”
Oh https://t.co/RO0inB9dnF
Again, are we overlooking the fact that this man is going to be Michigan State’s quarterbacks coach and not the offensive coordinator?
Bajakian was the offensive coordinator for some bad units under Fitzgerald at Northwestern and then again at UMass this past year. The new Michigan State quarterbacks coach was also hired by new Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham to be an offensive analyst and work with the quarterbacks at Utah.
So before you let rival fans tell you that this was a horrible hire, let them know that their head coach thought he was a good enough coach to employ him for two years.
Pat Fitzgerald is catching unnecessary strays
Hiring a coach who was an offensive coordinator at Central Michigan, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Boston College, Northwestern, and UMass and was an NFL quarterbacks coach to coach quarterbacks at Michigan State sounds like a slam dunk.
Unfortunately, the national media is not sharing this belief.
The above criticism from Bud Elliott didn’t seem fair because he’s not just hiring some buddies of his from Northwestern. Bajakian is the only hire that’s actually straight from his Northwestern coaching tree outside of the program’s general manager.
It’s OK to be skeptical of certain hires. Everyone is. But to claim that Fitzgerald is only hiring his Northwestern buddies is both wild and wrong.