Pat Fitzgerald’s Michigan State tenure begins with singular focus: Get the 2026 roster in order

East Lansing — Pat Fitzgerald is racing the clock in his first 36 or so hours as Michigan State’s new head football coach to make the Spartans competitive in 2026 and beyond.

After signing a contract on Monday evening, reportedly worth $30 million over 5 years, Fitzgerald got to work getting in touch with the individuals comprising the Spartans’ 2026 signing class ahead of the signing period opening on Wednesday morning. He also met with the current team on Tuesday after arriving in East Lansing, and began the necessary process of working to keep the bulk of the roster together. 

The opening pitch to the team, one Fitzgerald shared at his introductory press conference on Tuesday, is simple.

“As I told them today, everybody that stays here is going to be part of a great story,” Fitzgerald said in his press conference. “When we sit here at this time next year, you are going to be the catalyst and the reason why. When everybody asks 'Why?' The answer is going to be you. So let's all talk about staying here, sticking together and lets find a way to put this class that you helped recruit over the goal line and then we'll talk about adding pieces to the locker room once the portal open here in a couple weeks.”

By the timing of his hiring coinciding with signing day and the subsequent opening of the transfer portal for the Michigan State players (and in general), Fitzgerald’s first priority taking over the Spartans will not be hiring a new staff, but ensuring the roster is competitive in 2026. That means doubling back with the pledges MSU has is in its recruiting class — currently ranked No. 39 by 247 Sports — and beginning to get acquainted with the players currently on the team. 

“I got on the phone with multiple staff members here, and we just started talking through each player,” Fitzgerald said to a scrum of reporters after his introductory press conference. “We went over an extensive Zoom about each guy, and I'm working through that process. I'm not quite there yet. I'm not making an excuse that I've been too busy. I've just been kind of in, you know — I don't know if I've stopped yet, since I've landed. So, going to keep trying to reach out to a few guys. We're going to try to add some pieces, and then see how this room changes after the portal opens, and that's just a reality of college football.”

Athletic director J Batt, who also spoke and took questions on Tuesday, demurred on the specific timeline of the Fitzgerald hire and when the Spartans first reached out. 

With Fitzgerald being out of a job, it’s possible that Batt and the university leadership could’ve moved to fire Jonathan Smith sooner and bring in Fitzgerald with more lead time to get a recruit class signed. 

But that’s not the case for Fitzgerald, who now has hours to get the first wave of this class signed during the early signing period.

So after a compliance crash course to be up to speed, he got to dialing up recruits on FaceTime on Monday night after signing his contract. 

“My voice is a little raspy for a reason,” Fitzgerald said. “The amount of FaceTimes I was on last night was, I think it stopped at 11:30, when it was like, 'OK, I think this is too late to be calling kids in their homes.' And so I still have some more to get to today. The goal was to get to half and I think I got a little bit over that yesterday.”

Given the whiplashing-inducing timeline of getting the job and hitting the ground running, Fitzgerald is in a holding pattern with respect to hiring staff. 

There will certainly be changes as he looks to put his mark on the operation, but for now he’s waiting on that as the Spartans sign the 2026 class. 

This does not mean the new head man in East Lansing doesn’t have some ideas already for who he might want coaching alongside him. 

“Yeah, I'd like to have it done yesterday,” Fitzgerald said. “But that's not the case. So it's going to be done when it's done. It's kind of like turkey, you know, on Thanksgiving. When it's done, it's done. If it's done right, it's great. So let's get it done right. Again, if this was a different timetable three or four weeks ago, and we had to kind of keep you know, a lot of things kind of moving, I think I probably would have walked in and said, here's bang, bang, bang. 

“But with the timing and signing day, I don't think a 40-second play clock decision is right. And frankly, I've got my team working the phones for me, and I'm trying to get recruits and trying to get people like, ‘Hey, I'm gonna get to you, give me a couple days. Give me a couple days.’ It's important to get the right people.”

And as is the case in college football these days, a good roster is only possible through adequate financial resources in the form of revenue share and NIL commitments.

Fitzgerald expressed his confidence in MSU delivering what is needed to get the players to compete in the Big Ten. 

And as he’s being with his ingress to the Michigan State coaching job, Fitzgerald preached the need to be nimble and adaptable to the changes of the college football landscape that seemingly come every week in the current climate. 

Much like his decision to hold back on reshaping the Spartan staff until this signing class and roster get put in place, a need to work in unorthodox ways is quickly becoming useful currency in college football. 

“I'm going to make sure that we're as fully nimble and flexible as we can be as the landscape continues to do one thing, and I promise ya' it's going to, Jack, it's gonna change,” Fitzgerald said. “What it is today is not gonna be what it is in two or three years. So we've gotta do a great job being nimble enough and the resources that we expect to have provided to us, we expect to be able to compete at the highest level.”