While ushering in Pat Fitzgerald, Michigan State shared a simple message for Jonathan Smith

East Lansing — Much can be levied against Jonathan Smith for how his Michigan State tenure went. 

Not enough talent on the field, not enough energy off it, and a head coaching regime that seemed at a disconnect with both a new crop of university leadership above it and the fans, donors and alumni that needed to serve as its foundation. The resulting football product was unsatisfactory, and the tides to change it didn’t turn quick enough. 

But one can’t really say that Smith didn’t handle his job with dignity and openness, and leaves East Lansing with his former bosses and replacement making a point to highlight their appreciation for the way he went about his business in 736 days leading the Spartans. Smith and Co. might have failed at the football aspects of the job, but he can head to his next chapter of life with his head held high, at least as far as the people who replaced him are concerned. 

“Before we get into today's news, I'd like to thank Jonathan Smith, for the first-class manner in which he represented Michigan State and the professional, classy manner he's handled this transition,” athletic director J Batt said during his opening remarks to introduce Smith’s replacement, Pat Fitzgerald. “We certainly wish him well and his family well in their future endeavors.”

It’s a harmonious tone to be struck for an industry where exits are often messy and sometimes controversial, and guaranteed to be public. Michigan State needs no reminding in this matter given how Mel Tucker’s tenure ended. So despite moving to fire Smith, something they said they had alignment from the board of trustees on, Batt and president Kevin Guskiewicz both praised the former coach for his service. 

“I also want to take the opportunity, as J Batt has already done, and that is to thank Jonathan Smith for his contributions to Michigan State University and his family for being part of this community,” Guskiewicz said in his opening remarks. “And he is indeed a class act, and I know we will continue to try to support him and his family.”

Smith’s even, collected nature likely served to make him a prized candidate for then-athletic director Alan Haller, looking to make a steady hire in the wake of the mercurial Tucker being ousted for an off-the-field scandal. 

Haller, himself a bit of an old school figure in college athletics and quite buttoned up, seemed like a natural partner for Smith. The Spartans went 5-7 in Year 1, underwhelming but not to the degree Smith’s tenure was in question. Then Haller left his post and the Spartans brought in Batt during the summer. 

Batt made clear that his goal is to have MSU functioning as a Top 10 athletic department nationally, with money flowing in and football success at the core of it all. As Smith embarked on 2025, he had a new boss to impress — and both under a relatively new president in Guskiewicz, who arrived in late 2023. 

So as Smith’s Spartans started off 0-8 in conference play and struggled to turn the ship, Batt began pondering next steps, a process that culminated in Smith getting fired on Nov. 30, a day after the season finale. 

Fitzgerald had a contract signed the following Monday evening and got introduced on campus on Tuesday afternoon. 

Batt declined to speak on the specifics of the hiring timeline out of “respect for everyone involved.” 

“I'm certainly not going to be specific about the search or the search process out of respect for everybody involved,” Batt said.
”I will tell you that it's my job as the Athletic Director that we would be prepared, to always be cognizant of the market, cognizant of opportunities in the market and as the season progressed and it became increasingly something we needed to pay attention to, certainly did that, but again, I won't speak specifically about the timing of that.”

Whether or not Batt began moving behind the scenes to replace Smith as the season wore on is immaterial, to an extent, now that the move has been made. 

And for as much as college football can be a cold, calculating business where a coach can get fired after 24 games, as Smith did, the now-former Spartans head coach never ran from the reality that he was competing at the highest level of the sport. 

Smith, as well as anybody, knew what he signed up for. Plus he also knows he’s get $33 million to walk out the door in this situation. 

But it’s still a coach being pulled away from his team, a group of players Smith surely poured plenty into, and who cared deeply about him. Just look at some of the messages players posted on social media after Smith got fired. Even Fitzgerald, his replacement, shared that he understood some of what Smith is going through, having been severed from his own team not so long ago. 

Fitzgerald got ousted at Northwestern ahead of the 2023 season amidst a hazing scandal amongst his players that investigations found he had no knowledge of. That resulted in a wrongful termination suit and settlement between Fitzgerald and Northwestern that he has said he feels “100% vindicated” by. 

“I wanted to make sure that they knew how I felt about Coach Smith,” Fitzgerald said of his first time speaking with his new team. “And you know, not only because of my selfish — selfishly, because of my friendship, but because I can only imagine how they felt, how my guys felt when I got taken away from my guys.”

Perhaps Tom Izzo, the elder statesman and de facto figurehead of all that is Michigan State athletics, put it best when he talked on Monday about Smith’s ouster and their conversation after Smith got fired. 

“I hate what's happened to Jonathan Smith,” Izzo said. “I hate what's happened because things did not go as well as I would like them. But more importantly, things did not go as well as he would like it. I did talk to him every week. I talked to him before every game. I talked to him today. I am saddened by it. I understood it. He understood it, which is really important, but it doesn't mean we have to like it. There were a lot of things that were issues, but a lot of things that were beyond his control.

"He was a good football mind, and I don't think anybody ever questioned his character, his integrity. He always represented us with class."