CHICAGO - Pat Fitzgerald didn’t waste much time explaining why Alessio Milivojevic has become the quarterback he wants to build around at Michigan State.
During a team meeting this summer, Fitzgerald told the room, "'You're like my kids,'" he recalled. "'I love all of you equally, but I just love the quarterback more, so don't take offense to that.'"
That kind of trust didn’t come out of nowhere. Fitzgerald saw Milivojevic up close last fall in Iowa, when the then-redshirt freshman made his third start in four games and handled a brutal environment with the kind of edge that sticks with a coach.
Milivojevic threw for 255 yards and two touchdowns, with one interception that Fitzgerald called pretty inconsequential. The bigger takeaway was how he responded after taking punishment.
"He got his lips absolutely freaking knocked off [against Iowa in Kinnick]," Fitzgerald said. "And the kid kept getting up and getting up and getting up and getting up."
Milivojevic said he knew exactly what play Fitzgerald was talking about. "I know exactly the play he's talking about -- 15-yard penalty, by the way," he said.
"My mouth may have been bleeding. I may have been coughing up blood.
But yeah, I think it's very cool to hear a guy who's been through the Big Ten many, many years as a head coach talk about you like that. Now, with him being my head coach, I can show him in person how I am a tough guy, and I appreciate, obviously, every compliment he's given me."
The connection between the two had been building for a while. Milivojevic once took an unofficial visit to Northwestern when Fitzgerald was there and met him briefly.
Both also had Chicago-area ties: Milivojevic is from Naperville and played at St. Francis High School, while Fitzgerald later volunteered at nearby Loyola Academy.
Their paths just happened to cross in East Lansing after some detours. Fitzgerald spent his career at Northwestern before getting fired by the Wildcats, and Milivojevic was days from signing with Ball State before Jonathan Smith’s newly hired staff brought him into Michigan State’s 2024 recruiting class.
Since then, Fitzgerald has made it clear that Milivojevic is more than just the quarterback. At Big Ten Media Days, he called him a central figure in the program’s leadership structure.
"He's our unequivocal team leader," Fitzgerald said during the televised portion of his availability. "He met with every player that we brought on campus during the portal, and it was twofold.
He's smart enough to get a free meal, and number two, also a great leader to get to know the guys that we're trying to bring in. But he's just got all the leadership skills that you're looking for, that 'it' factor, and we're excited for him to lead our football team this year."
Milivojevic said the live reps he got at the end of the 2025 season gave him a real foundation to work from. He wasn’t the full-time starter then, but he still got enough game action to learn what the job demands.
"Last year's experience kind of just gave me something to build off," Milivojevic said. "Those eight games, I got in sporadically: maybe a random drive in the second quarter, or like two plays in the second quarter, or a random drive at the end of a game."
"But I think now that I've got those four games of starting, and feeling the highs and lows, the halftimes, everything, every part of the game, it really allows me to really understand what it takes to win a Big Ten football game. It takes a lot; it takes a lot. So now that I know what it takes, I think it's going to allow me to build on it this next year."
The numbers back up why Michigan State is optimistic. Milivojevic has three years of eligibility remaining, and across those four starts last year he threw for 986 yards with seven touchdowns and just two interceptions. He also says East Lansing is where he plans to stay.
"This is exactly where I want to be," he said. "I really, honestly, I have no plans of leaving.
I wanna finish my career here. I have two more seasons after this one... as long as I'm in college, I wanna be at Michigan State."
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