Saturday was a busy day for Michigan State head coach Pat Fitzgerald.
Michigan State’s new leader officially locked down Hank Poteat as his cornerbacks coach from Iowa State, and then he hired a quarterbacks coach. Mixed in with this was the loss of junior tight end Michael Masunas to the transfer portal, but we’re going to focus on the good right now.
Fitzgerald reportedly hired UMass offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian who has bounced around quite a bit over the years. He’s been the offensive coordinator at several different programs like Tennessee, Cincinnati, Boston College, Northwestern, Central Michigan, and most recently UMass.
But what else do we know about Michigan State’s new quarterbacks coach?
Meet new Michigan State QB coach Mike Bajakian
There is some skepticism surrounding this hire, especially since he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for one of the worst teams in the country in 2025.
Bajakian has been coaching at the FBS level since 1998 when he got his start as a grad assistant with Rutgers. He was also a grad assistant at Michigan before taking the Central Michigan quarterbacks coach job in 2002. He went to the NFL with the Bears as an offensive assistant before coming back to Central Michigan as the offensive coordinator in 2007.
The new hire went to Cincinnati in the same role in 2010 and then Tennessee hired him as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2013. Then he made a huge jump to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as their quarterbacks coach.
Boston College hired him in 2019 before Fitzgerald poached him in 2020 as the program’s next quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator until he left in 2023.
Over the past two years, he’s been an offensive analyst for new Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham and then he became UMass’ offensive coordinator.
During his time as a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, he coached some impressive gunslingers. He coached Dan LeFevour at Central Michigan, Josh Dobson at Tennessee, 4,000–yard passer Jameis Winston with the Buccaneers, and Peyton Ramsey with Northwestern.
Although his offensive coordinator role wasn’t all that impressive with UMass, he has a history of working with and developing some really good quarterbacks.
This may not be an A+ hire, by any means, but it might turn out to be a sneaky-good one.