Michigan State football coach Jonathan Smith is coaching on borrowed time — or at least that’s how it feels for Spartan fans who expected J Batt to move on from him after the UCLA loss.
Since that 3-0 start to the season, Smith has lost six straight games, the most recent coming in overtime at Minnesota when it looked like the Spartans had finally secured a win with the go-ahead touchdown coming with about two minutes left. Unfortunately, the defense (and special teams) crumbled on the final drive to allow the tying score.
Minnesota was able to tie things up at 17-17 and overtime went the way of the Gophers, ending on a touchdown scramble by Drake Lindsey that was, well, controversial (it was an inch short).
With the loss and an approaching bye week, Spartan fans thought surely that Smith would be let go and the athletic department would begin their search for a new coach. That didn’t happen.
Well, it hasn’t happened — yet.
And it might not happen thanks to a move made by Wisconsin that may have set a scary precedent for Michigan State which is almost in the exactly same position.
Wisconsin announced earlier this week that Luke Fickell would not be fired and the university and donors would invest more money into the football program to ensure that he succeeds. How does this affect Michigan State? Well, it doesn’t directly, but Batt could see this as an opportunity to save the university a buyout by giving Smith another year with more financial backing and resources to succeed in 2026.
I’m not saying that Batt looked at that and probably loved the idea, but the fact that Wisconsin did that while almost surely being a favorite to fire its head coach this offseason was shocking and it could open doors for other schools to do the same.
Smith hasn’t been let go yet, and this move by Wisconsin makes it seem like it might not happen, and that is now an option for Michigan State.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think financial backing would fix the issues Smith has experienced.