EAST LANSING -- Michigan State accepted this type of season as a possibility.
The biggest disadvantage of hiring Pat Fitzgerald was that he didn't have a coaching staff or a group of players from a previous stop to bring with him. Only one player, rush end Kenny Soares Jr., played for Fitzgerald at Northwestern, and none of the Spartans' coordinators or position coaches worked for him there.
Virtually every Year 1 success story in this era involves a coach who brings over about a dozen players and some other coaches with them. Indiana's Curt Cignetti brought 13 players with him from James Madison to Indiana in 2024. MSU's next opponent, UCLA (currently 6-0), has 11 players that new head coach Bob Chesney brought with him from JMU.
Oklahoma State is having a pretty good season; it has 20 players that Eric Morris brought with him from North Texas. Auburn just beat then-No. 1 Georgia on the road, and it has 13 players that Alex Golesh brought with him from South Florida.
It's not a completely foolproof plan, of course. Penn State is 3-4 right now, with 24 transfers that Matt Campbell took with him from Iowa State. Michigan has had a rocky season -- though it is still 4-2 -- despite Kyle Whittingham bringing some reinforcements and coaches with him from Utah, though maybe not as many players as the other coaches listed above.
Michigan State hasn't really tried this strategy. Even when it hired Jonathan Smith, the Spartans only brought over three players from Oregon State (QB Aidan Chiles, TE Jack Velling, and C Tanner Miller). Just because everybody else seems to be zigging doesn't mean MSU is necessarily incorrect for zagging. The last two close losses show why Fitzgerald deserves some time to piece together his vision for the program.
Painfully Close to 4-3
Imagine if the Spartans' two-point conversion against Illinois had worked and it was Northwestern's field goal getting blocked instead of Michigan State's. The conversation around Fitzgerald would be about how impressive it is that he has such an inherently flawed roster, possibly in position for a bowl game, rather than about the mess 2026 has become with a 2-5 record.
"I get paid to win, and we're not winning," Fitzgerald said after the Northwestern loss. "So it starts and ends with me. We've got to look at all the reasons why things happened the way that they did and just get back to work and roll our sleeves up. There's a lot of fight in this group."
The moral victory stuff and things like "the effort was very good" aren't the kind of thing MSU fans generally want to hear, but it's sort of what Michigan State needs out of this season. There were too many obvious holes on the roster in the preseason to have any real expectations (again, this was an accepted possibility with the Fitzgerald hiring), so a big part of the story was just going to be about the long-term foundation and how things seemed outside of Saturdays.
In-Season Improvements
What's positive is that MSU seems to be finding ways to improve midseason. It hasn't resulted in a victory yet, but the Spartans' offense, which seemed to be approaching truly anemic or even hopeless status after Cam Edwards' season-ending injury, has rebounded the last two weeks. Michigan State finished with just 21 points on Saturday, but it really should've been more with the opportunities quarterback Alessio Milivojevic missed downfield.
The defense also found a way to keep its head above water for about 50 minutes on Saturday. That's longer than some may have expected, with the injuries really stacking up at corner and linebacker. Three of Northwestern's points were only because a Milivojevic fumble immediately gave NU first-and-goal. That scoring "drive" went backward 10 yards.
Hopes for 2027
The 2026 season should be considered a real "Year 0" for Fitzgerald. Michigan State really needs his tenure to work out. If MSU has a third consecutive failed coach, future candidates could justifiably view MSU as the common denominator of those losing seasons. The Spartans will also be paying Smith's buyout until after the 2030 season (about $6 million per year). Fitzgerald will get a much longer leash than what Smith did, just from an image and financial perspective.
Next year is when the clock will start. Athletic director Dan Bartholomae wrote in a recent letter that the team will be "resourced to be competitive immediately." That makes this winter's transfer portal window a real point of intrigue, because it will really reveal what kind of resources Fitzgerald will have to work with. MSU will have to get pretty busy as well, with many starters on expiring eligibility and a relatively small 2027 recruiting class.
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