MSU football falls to UCLA, Jonathan Smith’s tenure in peril (video)
Lansing State Journal columnist Graham Couch and Detroit Free Press beat writer Chris Solari, discuss MSU’s loss to UCLA and Jonathan Smith’s tenure.
EAST LANSING — On a packed elevator ride down from the top floor at Spartan Stadium, the elevator attendant thanked fans for coming to Saturday’s game and quipped: “Don’t give up hope, folks. There’s always the Michigan School for the Blind. We’re only six-point underdogs.”
Then a fan asked if he had $30 million available to buy out Jonathan Smith’s contract.
This is where things stand. Barely mid-October. Just halfway through Year 2 of Smith’s tenure. And Michigan State’s football season has reached a familiar point of inevitability (which pre-dates Smith), along with a bad mix of fan anger and apathy (and jokes to soothe the pain), and a complete loss of hope. MSU’s 38-13 loss to UCLA crushed any remaining optimism.
If this season continues on the trajectory of the last two weeks for the next two weeks, at Indiana and against Michigan, I don’t know that Smith makes it to Minnesota. I don’t think money is going to be the obstacle it’s being made out to be.
If it’s determined that Smith isn’t the guy to lead this era of MSU football, you figure out the money. His buyout doesn’t become much more palatable in a year’s time. You don’t waste another year.
I don’t read new athletic director J Batt as someone keen on wasting time. Or beating around the bush. When asked for his leadership style in one word — by MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz, no less — last month on stage at a luncheon, Batt replied, “Direct.”
To be clear, though, making a change like this isn’t usually just an athletic director’s call. Guskiewicz would have to be on board, too. The board of trustees might have a say, given the size of the buyout. But if change is needed, it’ll happen sooner than you might think.
Until Saturday, I held out hope that Smith and his staff might still be able breathe life into this season and pull some momentum out of the next couple months.
But Saturday was different. And Smith knew it. The team appeared to lack enthusiasm and energy. It looked like an increasingly demoralized group, with no sign of answers. That’s a bad place for a program to be during a must-win game in front of a homecoming crowd, a crowd that booed them off the field at halftime and was too sparse to be heard by game’s end.
“The staff, we’re responsible to prepare these guys through the weeks, and they come out and execute and play with great energy, and we didn’t have it today,” Smith said. “ … I don’t think we matched UCLA’s new life, new energy on some one-on-one (matchups) and got beat. I don’t think there was any loafing out there. I still think the care-factor is there with this team.”
Smith went on to say that he was “very surprised” by his team’s performance, given what he saw in practice this past week.
To that end, some of that surprise was his fault, too. You could feel the energy change and the team deflate after their failed fourth-and-inches try from the 34-yard line in the first quarter, a decision that made little sense and a play call that was even worse. The rest of the air seemed to come out of the Spartans after giving up a first down on a fake punt, which led to another UCLA touchdown and a 17-7 Bruins lead.
That doesn’t explain an MSU offense that went from putting up 31 points on USC (Michigan just scored 13 against the Trojans on Saturday night), to one that looks like it’s lost its way. Or why quarterback Aidan Chiles has taken such a step backward.
“Passing is a lot about rhythm, and we have failed to get into one in the passing game the last couple of weeks,” Smith said.
Maybe that can be recaptured. But what we saw Saturday, all around, isn’t acceptable.
RELATED: Couch’s grades for Michigan State’s performance against UCLA
“We’re going to analyze it in a big way,” Smith said. “And then we’ve got to fix what we can fix. And then we think about, if this is a flaw that we can’t totally fix, maybe think about different scheme, different personnel, that kind of thing.”
Before Saturday was the time for a fix, coming off the loss at Nebraska. Now you’ve lost the fan base and it all might be beyond fixing.
I like Smith. I think he’s a good person. The sort of person you should want to succeed and want representing your football program. I think he’s been a good coach elsewhere and that there are some strong coaches on his staff. And that it’s too bad that he didn’t have energy and enthusiasm from top donors as he tried to build a roster with NIL.
Some of that is on him — he doesn’t have a personality that’s going to inspire fundraising. That’s part of the job now. Some of it is a result of bruised donor egos, after former athletic director Alan Haller hired Smith without consulting or including them. In Smith, Haller thought he’d found his Mark Dantonio.
Dantonio knew how to connect with long-suffering Spartan fans. Smith, so far, has not.
Still, if this were 2017, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Not yet at least.
But in 2025, momentum is essential in college football. Look at MSU’s next opponent, Indiana, which, with a second-year coach, just won at Oregon on Saturday.
“Our success (last season) opened doors on better recruits,” Indiana’s Curt Cignetti told the CBS broadcast after the win.
Cignetti is an unhelpful anomaly. He’s been brilliant at Indiana, helped by bringing with him a number of high-level starters from James Madison last season. He’s also been a great coach for a long time. Anyone could have had him for a while. But ADs often rely on search firms that don’t have a clue and worry about winning introductory press conferences, rather than digging deep to uncover a gem.
The Cignetti comparison is a thorn to any new coach trying to make their way. But that’s not why Smith is in trouble. If the Spartans had beaten Nebraska, as they should have, and played with fire (and better decisions) against UCLA, we’d be talking about a 5-1 team that, even if beating Indiana was asking too much, would have a shot against Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State now for sure, Iowa and Maryland. The Spartans at their best this season don’t have the goods to win all of those games, but they might have won two or three and been interesting along the way.
And that would have been enough for momentum. That was entirely within their reach.
These are dark days for MSU football. Years from now, this last decade might be known as the dark ages. I’d like to see Smith lead the Spartans out of it. I’d love to be able to write that I was wrong about where this is headed, that Smith had pulled this together and deserved some time and investment to see where it goes.
But, if that’s going to happen, he’s going to have to do it this month against all odds and against opponents with more horsepower and hope.
And Batt and Co. have to start preparing for the likelihood that doesn’t happen.
RELATED: Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State’s 38-13 loss to UCLA and Jonathan Smith’s tenure
Contact Graham Couch at [email protected]. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.
