INDIANAPOLIS — Go back exactly eight months, and there was Michigan State football mangled and crumpled, a green-and-white heap of a mess. The 42-0 loss to Penn State on a frigid November night at Ford Field was the last disaster punctuating a trainwreck of a season, when the Spartans endured the tabloidish midseason firing of their coach, a historic defeat to their in-state rival and several other ignominious Saturdays as they careened toward a 4-8 record that left their proud fans out in the cold.
How had it come to this? Only two years before, MSU won 11 games, beating rival Michigan in an epic East Lansing showdown and prevailing in a New Year’s Six bowl. That magical year, in 2021, revived the good vibes of the Mark Dantonio era, when the Spartans were perennial contenders, punching above their weight class and delivering one knockout blow after another.
“The Michigan State I was used to growing up, they won championships,” junior safety Dillon Tatum said Wednesday. “The (second) College Football Playoff, we were there.”
But by the time the Spartans’ season expired last fall, they were so far from that elite realm, so out of contention in their own conference, that it was hard to envision when — or even if — they could get back there. Then, just like that, a glimmer of hope revealed itself 24 hours later, when Jonathan Smith signed on to be the Spartans’ next head coach. Landing Smith was quite a coup, considering that MSU yanked him away from Oregon State, his alma mater that he resurrected over the previous six years.
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From the moment he set foot in East Lansing, Smith reignited faith. So, there he was Wednesday projecting measured optimism inside a different domed stadium on a sunny summer afternoon, 243 days removed from the sad end to Mel Tucker’s tortured term.
“Low ego, high output,” he said on stage at Big Ten media days, reminding his audience of his credo.
That mantra, the one Smith claims he lives by, rolled off his tongue at his introductory news conference last November.
Ever since he first uttered those words at Breslin Center, it’s hard to argue he doesn’t abide by them. Smith, after all, has shown no signs of coveting the spotlight or thirsting for praise. Instead, he seems content to go to work and not make a big show of it. Quietly and efficiently, he has stabilized the program, revamping the roster and installing his systems in a volatile environment where, at times, he seemed to be outrunning the crumbling cliff that is college football in 2024.
Thirty-eight players left the team via the transfer portal this offseason, including every scholarship quarterback and MSU’s top two defensive tackles, Derrick Harmon and Simeon Barrow. Some of those losses were substantial. But Smith didn’t bemoan his fate. Instead, he put his head down and filled the voids. Twenty-four players came to MSU from other college programs in the past seven months. Smith convinced talented dual-threat passer Aidan Chiles, budding tight end Jack Velling and stalwart center Tanner Miller to follow him from Oregon State. He welcomed four new defensive backs to beef up a secondary that had been a weak link throughout Tucker’s tenure. He added reinforcements along the lines.
“We wanted to establish a physicality on both sides,” Smith said.
Tucker did, too. He often talked about MSU being a “meat-and-potatoes” team with a “lunch pail” mentality. But Tucker himself didn’t completely embody that ethos. He also liked style and flash, which he sold to recruits. The contradictory messaging gave the impression MSU didn’t have a clear identity, and the inconsistency carried over to the field. Tucker always preached that he wanted the Spartans to play complementary football. But they rarely did. In each of Tucker’s four years, MSU finished among the bottom 30 teams of the Football Bowl Subdivision in time of possession. That left the defense both taxed and exposed. It created a vicious cycle that caused the Spartans’ decline in 2022 and ultimately led to their collapse last year.
Smith was then left to pick up the pieces. But with time, and his steady hand, he was confident he could reassemble them or maybe make them all fit together better.
The scarred players who had endured the downfall were also convinced he could handle a large-scale renovation, welcoming Smith as a savior of sorts.
As Velling observed when he first arrived in the winter, the holdovers from Tucker’s roster yearned for the kind of ballast Smith could provide.
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“They were just glad to have someone that’s steady and that’ll be here and really help us get wins,” Velling noted.
As Smith recalled, “I felt the response for a lot of guys is they were looking for a fresh start, a different direction…I think as time goes on opportunity and our approach and the consistency of it, those that will be there for the long haul will grow and develop.”
In theory, so too will his program. With Smith, there is a sense there will be no shortcuts on the pathway to their desired destination. Unlike Tucker, who tried to turbo-boost MSU as the original “portal king,” Smith has a track record of progressive building. In his first four full seasons at Oregon State, the Beavers increased their win total from two to five to seven to 10 victories. The climb up the Pac-12 standings was slow and incremental. The progression tracked with Smith’s process-oriented thinking. Velling explained that his coach often talked about “trying to get 1% better.”
“That approach of always being in a constant state of improvement,” Smith said, is a foundational part of his philosophy. It’s not sexy. It’s maybe even a little boring.
But that is Smith.
Even-keeled, he is determined to keep MSU on course, tracing an upward trajectory.
After the Spartans crashed and burned under the previous regime, it is a welcomed change.
“I love what he is doing,” athletic director Alan Haller noted.
How could he not? There is hope again. And Smith, a stabilizing force, is the one who has inspired it.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football needs the steady hand of Jonathan Smith
