One of the things hovering over this incredibly active coaching carousel has been the presence of several notable names who were available to schools but were somewhat out of the game without an attachment to a team.
James Franklin was suddenly available before his hire at Virginia Tech. Jon Gruden rumors were out there both publicly and behind the scenes. Chip Kelly recently joined the fray and there was a weekly reminder on ACC Network this season that Jimbo Fisher is ready for a call from an athletic director, too.
The most interesting name of the bunch, however, was Pat Fitzgerald. It has been three seasons since he was last on the sidelines at his alma mater of Northwestern, and the lawsuit settlement against the school over his dismissal earlier this year was basically a signal that he was fully prepared to coach again in 2026. Whenever there was a Big Ten opening, or even speculation around one, his name was one of the first mentioned.
Michigan State was not one of the schools that seemed to fall into that camp with Jonathan Smith in just his second season in East Lansing, Mich., and a hefty buyout attached to any sort of change. Yet, the Spartans felt like the opportunity was too good to pass up and swiftly dismissed Smith to nearly simultaneously turn around and hire Fitzgerald to take over in his place.
For those who have been around the Big Ten, the move is going to look strange seeing the former linebacker walking around in green and white instead of the purple he wore for decades. But it is also understandable as he’s a proven commodity in the conference, won at a really tough place to do so and understands what it takes to get an entire program focused on the task at hand. Fitzgerald, meanwhile, gets back to the only league he’s really ever known at a place with a lot better access to talent and a potential path to the College Football Playoff.
It sounds like a win for all involved even if, in the end, neither will wind up hitting the highs they probably expect to reach going in.
What it means for Michigan State
The Spartans have a fairly new school president and a new athletic director, which is always cause for concern if you’re the current football coach that is not winning. In that sense, Smith’s dismissal is pretty understandable and especially so in light of how his teams lost games the past two years before even getting to his inability to connect as a West Coast guy giving it a go in the Midwest.
It’s also perfectly easy to see why Fitz would appeal to the Michigan State brain trust, someone in the mold of former Sparty coach Mark Dantonio as the tough, hard-nosed coach who is capable of finding a bunch of diamonds-in-the-rough recruits and molding them into winners.
That’s the bet at least, ignoring that Fitzgerald was 2–16 in conference play his final two years at Northwestern and that he has not really shown what he can do in the transfer portal and revenue-sharing era. He has been spending time picking the brains of other coaches in the last few years to come up with solutions to that hole in his résumé and to understand how he could change his ways to assemble a more watchable offense.
It appears Michigan State was convinced of all that upside and knew, at a minimum, he would make this a much tougher team every Saturday that was capable of beating everybody in the league under the right circumstances.
What it means for Pat Fitzgerald
There was little question that Fitzgerald wanted back into college coaching again and was sniffing around plenty of openings this cycle before eventually connecting with Michigan State. In a perfect world in his mind he would probably still be back in Evanston, Ill., with the Wildcats but those days have sailed given all of the messiness surrounding his exit and some of the allegations attached to his time in charge.
Now he can move past all that and prove he’s a changed—and improved—coach at a place that fits his personality and should provide a higher ceiling on what he is capable of. Nobody is doubting the résumé and the job Fitzgerald did at Northwestern because it’s one of the most difficult spots to win at in the Big Ten for a reason. That he still managed to take them to a pair of conference title games and finish in the Top 25 five times is a testament to what he can do.
Now he just has to do it at a different school while benefiting from less strict academic standards and an expanded recruiting pool. Fitzgerald should have a chance to more liberally use the transfer portal in a positive manner to build his roster and it goes without saying that aside from getting used to more West Coast trips, there won’t be much he has to adjust to when it comes to coaching in the Big Ten.
In short, this is a marriage that makes sense for both parties even if one side was a little more antsy at getting it across the line.
Final Grade: B-
This is a high-floor, but ultimately low-ceiling, hire for Michigan State in bringing Fitzgerald back to college football. That’s not a bad thing for a program which has been unable to find much of a footing for much of the past decade, but it probably limits the upside for a program that should be much more successful than it has been compared to other, more exciting options.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Grading Pat Fitzgerald to Michigan State: Big Name Immediately Raises Spartans’ Floor.
