It's been four years since Michigan State football truly had "juice".
The Spartans were in year two of Mel Tucker and fans were buying in as the second-year head coach was taking the Michigan rivalry seriously (he was 2-0 to begin against the Wolverines) and he led Michigan State to an 11-win season and a Peach Bowl win over Pat Narduzzi and Pitt. Oh, and he had a legitimate Heisman candidate in the backfield.
The program felt more "back" than it had been since that 2015 College Football Playoff season under Mark Dantonio.
And we all know what happened next.
Michigan State struggled in 2022, falling to 5-7 after a New Year's Six season. Tucker's new contract felt like a massive mistake as the Spartans were missing on top recruiting targets consistently and then the head coach was fired a few games into the 2023 season because of an off-field issue.
Harlon Barnett took over and Michigan State missed out on a bowl for a second straight season before hiring Jonathan Smith to take over in 2024.
It was dubbed as one of the best hires of the offseason and Michigan State was praised for poaching the Oregon State head coach after an impressive tenure with his alma mater.
Since getting to East Lansing, though, he's struggled a bit. He went 5-7 in his first season with flashes of promise shown throughout the year (the Iowa game comes to mind) and his recruiting hasn't quite picked up like we all would've hoped by now. But it's hard to sell three straight bowl-less seasons to recruits and Smith is finding that out. That's not entirely his fault.
Smith took over at a program that was in the gutter after the Tucker debacle and the roster was filled with underwhelming players as recruiting took a hit in 2022 and 2023. He still did a decent job with the roster he had and had that season finale against Rutgers gone differently, we may not even be having this conversation.
If the season ended after the Iowa game, everyone would be talking about how the program is ahead of schedule under Smith. Unfortunately, everything fell apart after that and the Spartans went 1-4 in the final five games after beating Iowa.
After an underwhelming recruiting stretch (no commitments since February) which included a four-star from Haslett spurning MSU for Kansas, fans are talking about the program being juice-less.
So what kind of 2025 season would return that "juice"?
That's tough, but given the schedule and the returning production, I would say somewhere in the 7-9 win range would bring that juice back. Just making a bowl game would be huge for the program after three straight seasons without one, but going 7-5 or better would do wonders for recruiting.
It's easier for recruits to buy in when they see improvement and can actually tune into a Michigan State football postseason game.
Like Graham Couch said, if we want the juice back, we need to buy into Jonathan Smith. While Smith needs to show more, he does need the backing early on as he tries to fix the culture. We all seem to forget that Dantonio had a rough start to his Michigan State career and some fans were calling for his job after he lost to Central Michigan at home in 2009. He went on to win 11-plus games in five of the next six seasons.