It’s hard to grade Pat Fitzgerald’s first year at Michigan State when the Spartans have barely resembled a normal football team.
The record says 2-6. The deeper problem is that Fitzgerald hasn’t been working with anything close to a complete roster. Michigan State was already light on proven talent, then the injuries started stacking up one after another, leaving the Spartans badly short-handed on both sides of the ball.
That’s what makes the evaluation so slippery. College football has moved into an era where head coaches are judged fast, sometimes brutally fast, and Michigan State already lived through that when Jonathan Smith was let go after just two seasons. The school is now taking on about $30 million in buyout money, and patience in East Lansing was already worn thin after the longest bowl drought in the Big Ten.
Fitzgerald, though, arrived under very different circumstances than most modern first-year success stories. He had been away from college coaching for three seasons, so he couldn’t show up with a full package of players and assistants in tow.
He also didn’t walk into a situation with a massive financial boost behind him. The roster he ended up assembling, along with the estimates floating around about the program’s budget, made it clear this wasn’t a case of Michigan State suddenly swimming in extra resources.
And that matters. The Spartans have needed to spend aggressively to get top-end talent for a while, but they simply haven’t had true “overpay” money. The result is a roster that was already thin and has now become paper-thin, with very few game-changing players to lean on.
There were at least a few early signs that MSU could hang around. The fight at Notre Dame stood out because the Spartans weren’t totally overwhelmed the way they had been against title-level teams in the past. That felt like a small but real step forward.
Then came Cam Edwards’ season-ending knee injury against Nebraska, and the season changed shape fast. Edwards had been the offense’s clear best weapon and, in truth, its only true playmaker. The Nebraska game was described as a nightmare, with injuries piling up at a dizzying pace.
By the time Michigan State got to UCLA, the injury list had turned into something absurd. The Spartans were without their QB1, QB2, star RB1, RB2, CB1, CB2, CB3, CB4, and their star linebacker. Then the game started, and RB3, the star defensive tackle, and the starting safety - who had forced two fumbles - all got hurt too.
That isn’t really Fitzgerald’s team in the practical sense. Yes, these are his players now, but this wasn’t supposed to be the year Kayd Coffman started at quarterback.
Kenneth Williams was not supposed to be getting 17 carries as a fourth-string running back. Jeremiah Favorite was not supposed to be starting at corner as a true freshman.
But that is the reality Fitzgerald inherited, and it leaves him being judged on a roster that has been ripped apart by circumstances.
Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde recently sorted first-year Power Four coaches into categories ranging from “feasting” to “famine,” and Michigan State landed in the last group. Forde wrote, “Dreams of renewed, spit-in-the-eye competitiveness from the Spartans have dissolved into a likely fifth straight losing season under three different coaches,” and added, “Fitz does not have great talent and his roster has been decimated by injuries, but the Big Ten is a no excuses league.”
The record is the record, and 2-6 certainly fits the “famine” label. Still, Fitzgerald’s own words after the UCLA loss underline why this season has been so strange to assess.
“I've never seen so many injuries, and they've all happened in games,” Fitzgerald said. “That's what's so crazy to me.
If it was in practice, I could turn the dials up or down, left or right. When they happen in games, I don't have a big solution for that besides 'next guy up.'”
There is at least some reason to think the real version of this rebuild won’t begin until later. Fitzgerald said after the Notre Dame loss that Michigan State would be a “completely different team” when the Fighting Irish come to East Lansing next year, and that’s already easier to believe when you look at the roster reality ahead.
MSU is the oldest team in the Big Ten this season, and a fair number of starters are set to move on because their eligibility is running out. The transfer portal will only make the picture murkier. It’s impossible to know how many starters or key reserves will actually be back.
That coming offseason is going to tell the real story. Michigan State has a massive amount of roster work ahead, and it may need 20-25 new players just to get the thing headed in the right direction.
The key question is whether the money will finally match the need. Fitzgerald and new athletic director Dan Bartholomae have both projected confidence that the football program will be better funded in 2027, but the size of that increase is still the big unknown. Michigan State needs enough resources to land enough difference-makers, and nobody knows yet whether the Spartans will have that kind of firepower.
For now, Fitzgerald’s first season should probably be treated like a strange, incomplete setup rather than a clean verdict. The concept of a “Year 0” may be mostly gone, but this is one case where a reset label still makes sense. The team on the field right now is not really the one he gets to be judged on long term, and he still doesn’t appear to be operating with the level of support he’ll have going forward.
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Michigan State Just Made An Early Push For A Top Defensive Piece
Michigan States staff has already started laying groundwork for the future on defense, and one of the first names to surface is Kaleb Woseley. The highly rated cornerback from Imhotep Charter in Philadelphia is part of the 2028 recruiting class, and the Spartans have now joined a growing list of programs showing early interest in a prospect who already carries a four-star composite rating.
For a program trying to build out its defensive pipeline through high school recruiting, getting in early on a player like Woseley matters. He has multiple offers on the board, which only adds to the competition, and Michigan States push is an indication that the Spartans are not waiting around to identify the next wave of secondary talent. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Rivalry Could Be Headed For Another Jarring Change
The latest round of coaching chatter around the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry has more to do with instability than the game itself, and that is becoming a familiar theme. A CBS report suggested Michigan head coach Kyle Whittingham could be facing a one-and-done run because of the programs struggles and the criticism piling up around him, another reminder that the rivalry has been shaped as much by turnover on the sidelines as by what happens on the field.
From Michigan States perspective, Pat Fitzgerald does not appear to be in the same kind of danger right now, even with the usual pressures that come with the job. Still, the possibility of another abrupt change at Michigan would add another layer of uncertainty to a rivalry that has already seen plenty of movement in recent years, and it would be another storyline the Spartans would have to navigate whether or not the on-field matchup changes with it. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan State Brings A Real Test To College Hockeys Biggest Stage
Michigan State is stepping into one of college hockeys biggest showcase moments with plenty of attention already attached. The Spartans, ranked No. 4 nationally, will have their game carried across NCHC.tv, Midco Sports and Fox 47.2, giving a wider audience a chance to see a roster that has quickly built real credibility. This is also the kind of stage where a young team can either look like a contender or get exposed, and Michigan State arrives with enough talent to make it a compelling watch.
One of the biggest reasons for that confidence has been freshman goaltender Joshua Ravensbergen, who has been strong early and sits near the top nationally in save percentage and goals against average. Add in a roster that features a significant number of NHL draft picks, and the Spartans are not just showing up for a showcase event, they are bringing the kind of firepower and poise that can make this game feel like more than a one-night exhibition. The question now is how well that talent holds up against a true test on a bigger stage. [Read more 🡒]