Michigan State fires Jonathan Smith
Smith is out at MSU after just two seasons and a 9-15 overall record and a 4-8 2025 campaign.
Michigan State is firing head football coach Jonathan Smith, the university officially announced on Sunday.
"The 2025 football season has not lived up to our shared standards for Michigan State Football," athletic director J Batt is quoted as saying in a release. "While that does not fall solely on Jonathan Smith, it's become necessary to make a coaching change in order to chart a new direction for the program.
"We are appreciative of Coach Smith and the manner in which he represented Michigan State with class. Throughout a difficult season, the team continued to compete. While their efforts ultimately didn't result in enough on-field success, they do speak highly for their character."
The Detroit Free Press and Lansing State Journal reported on Sunday that Michigan State is planning to hire former Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald, who was fired from the school amidst hazing allegations. Fitzgerald sued for wrongful termination and settled earlier this year.
Smith, hired to take over the MSU program in the wake of Mel Tucker’s ouster by previous athletic director Alan Haller, officially posted a 4-15 record in East Lansing, due to NCAA vacated wins. On the field, Smith’s MSU teams won nine games in two years.
Smith's firing comes on the heels of a 1-8 conference record this year, which included an eight-game losing streak in Big Ten play as the noise around Smith’s future grew.
"While we will have a new coach next season, we must also do more as a department to support the program. President [Kevin] Guskiewicz and I are fully aligned to take the necessary steps to position our program to compete at the highest level. We are committed to providing an increased level of donor investment, department resources and enhanced infrastructure to effectively and efficiently deploy those resources. Michigan State has an incredibly passionate and loyal fan base, and we will build a program all Spartans can be proud of."
Smith’s ouster is the first major move of Batt’s tenure in East Lansing. Batt, who left Georgia Tech to take over the MSU athletic department this summer, remained publicly silent about Smith’s future as the season progressed.
After Saturday night’s win over Maryland, Batt declined to be available to reporters for questions following Smith’s press conference.
Presuming Smith is fired without cause, Michigan State will owe somewhere in the neighborhood of $33 million to Smith to buy out his contract. The buy out does have offsets, meaning Smith will get paid less by MSU if he finds other coaching work.
Michigan State completed its 2025 regular season with a win over Maryland, 38-28, on Saturday night in Ford Field. Afterward, Smith, who has been embattled, made his case for keeping the job into 2026.
“I think we’ve got a group that continues to work, stays on task when it’s not always easy,” Smith said. “We can do hard things. And we’re not overly dramatic, but I think we’re pretty tough as a group, when looking at this year.”
