Commentary: Michigan State's Pat Fitzgerald gambit lays bare college football’s cynical present

Whatever one thinks of Michigan State’s reported pursuit of Pat Fitzgerald, the former Northwestern head coach whose star fell in 2023 amidst substantiated allegations of hazing in his program, to be the next Spartan head football coach, it’s hard to argue that the MSU brass behind this choice aren’t trying to get with the times in college football. 

Because the message sent by new athletic director J Batt, president Kevin Guskiewicz and the array of apparently fired up donors aligning behind hiring an eminently credentialed former Big Ten head coach with obvious baggage is clear: Nothing matters more in college football than winning these days, winning requires the money to flow, and Michigan State plans to be in the business of winning. 

That’s what the last 48 hours of Michigan State football have signalled and track with what Batt said about football during his introductory press conference in June, that Michigan State’s athletic leadership is going to do what they think is necessary for a winning product on the football field. 

“It's imperative we support all our sports,” Batt said. “But do not be confused — every athletics department competing at the highest level must be successful in football. Coach Izzo and I have already talked. Coach is the biggest supporter of our football program that there is. We will do everything we possibly can to help dive in and help Coach Smith and continue to drive excellence and support you and all you need, while continuing to provide championship-level resources for all our programs.”

Evidently, Batt, Guskiewicz and MSU’s highest echelon of donors are predicating their belief in Fitzgerald to deliver Michigan State to success on the field before other considerations. 

His off-the-field baggage matters less now to decision makers than it would’ve years ago. An unreleased negotiated settlement between Fitzgerald and Northwestern for wrongful termination resulted in a statement from the university saying Fitzgerald was unaware of the hazing, something that Fitzgerald has paraded, saying he has been “vindicated.” 

That will likely be enough for MSU to look mostly forward, and not backwards, in hiring Fitzgerald. 

There are fair questions about whether Fitzgerald will actually succeed on the field — he went 4-20 in his last two seasons at Northwestern — and how ready he really is to navigate how college football works now.

Fitzgerald smartly did an interview on ESPN’s College GameDay podcast interview with Rece Davis and Pete Thamel in early November, where he talked about how he studied the sport while he was away and is a proven program builder ready to get after things in today’s time. 

“I got an opportunity to sit here and get a Ph.D. in what’s going on in college football,” Fitzgerald said, before going on about how revenue share and NIL are part of the deal now, too. 

But for whatever narrative might be crafted around Fitzgerald’s impending return to the college football sidelines, the real root of this move is basic: The belief that he’ll win a lot of football games. 

To start, think about what this all costs in dollars and cents.

Firing Jonathan Smith without cause will cost the Spartans north of $33 million. There are mitigating elements, so if Smith gets another job MSU might pay out a bit less over time. 

And hiring Fitzgerald surely won’t be cheap. He won’t demand a top-of-market salary, but a former head coach with his history taking a Power 4 job will likely be making something north of $5 million annually. He’ll also be hiring assistant coaches and likely want a decent commitment to having a pool of NIL money to spend in addition to MSU’s revenue share. 

So just on head coaching salaries, the Smith-to-Fitzgerald coaching change will cost Michigan State easily north of $50 million in salary commitments and likely much more. 

It’s hard to look at tens of millions of dollars being spent on a change in organizational leadership and not see a big, ruthless business at work. 

Additionally, it’s been widely reported that the Fitzgerald courtship from MSU is backed by, or at least creating a lot of buzz with donors, and that major news on that front is expected soon. (Best guess: Massive NIL commitments from one of the big fish.)

As administrators across the country have cried poor and the Big Ten itself has explored selling a stake in its athletic future for billions of dollars in private equity cash right now, eschewing the buttoned up and less-than-inspiring-to-donors coach for a name they know, respect and will donate money for is another point in Fitzgerald’s favor. He will certainly win the press conference in a way that Smith never did. 

Along with MSU’s institutional machinations around this hire, Fitzgerald’s recent past also cuts out at the knees any argument that this is about more than having a better football team on fall Saturdays. 

The head coach at Northwestern for 17 seasons spanning the 2006 through 2022 seasons, Fitzgerald led his alma mater to fairly regular success on the field and cultivated an outward persona as one of college football’s pre-eminent culture builders for the way his program operated. 

Then in the summer of 2023, Northwestern players came forth with allegations of hazing in the program. An external investigation determined these allegations of hazing — some of which was sexual in nature — were substantiated. 

But while it was alleged that Fitzgerald had known about the hazing, no investigation ever found that he was made aware it occurred. He has also maintained publicly that he was unaware.

Northwestern fired Fitzgerald shortly before the 2023 season, resulting in his eventual wrongful termination suit that got settled this summer. The players who alleged the hazing also reached a settlement with Northwestern earlier this year. 

Words about Fitzgerald being someone who molds young people ring hollow considering this recent history, as do notions about building a strong culture when abuse happened under his watch, unknown to him. 

While Fitzgerald himself wasn’t party to any wrongdoing, a lot of his credibility about how he ran his program evaporated with the hazing scandal. 

But the bet that Batt and MSU decisionsmakers are making is that whatever the cost is in terms of money or short-term public relations damage, much will be forgiven — or at least forgotten — if and when the Spartans get ahead vs. Toledo in the season opener on Sept. 5, 2026. Perhaps it will be sooner if Fitzgerald lands a coveted transfer in the portal in the coming months.

It’s very similar to the NFL, where the business of winning football games has, for years, trumped any number of unsavory off-the-field issues. 

It’s also worth considering Fitzgerald’s success at Northwestern started to fade in his latter years there. He overachieved at a time when college sports were different and the end of his tenure in Evanston featured him mostly treading water in the Big Ten, posting one winning record in his final four seasons.

It’s really impossible to say whether he’ll be successful at MSU or not given the sport has changed and presumably so has he. Fitzgerald seems like a good bet to manage the organizational leadership aspects of being a head coach, seeing as he’s done it well in the past, but the idea that this hire is a home run for the results on the field is suspect. Fitzgerald is 1-9 in his career against his new biggest rival, Michigan. 

But he’s the coach that Batt, Guskiewicz and the MSU brass are aligned on and wanted to hire, evidently working in the background during the back half of the season to have this hire lined up hours after showing Smith the door. 

Because if they believe Fitzgerald can win in East Lansing, in part by getting donors to start shelling out the cash, there’s little else that matters in this cynical moment college football finds itself in.