Coach Jonathan Smith on Rebuilding Michigan State's Football Program

Coach Jonathan Smith has begun the rebuilding process at Michigan State. It is a process he says he refuses to be patient with.

Jul 24, 2024; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Michigan State Spartans head coach Jonathan Smith speaks to the media during the Big 10 football media day at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports / Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports

Michigan State and Coach Jonathan Smith continue to inch closer to the season's first kickoff, a home matchup against Florida Atlantic. It will officially mark the beginning of the Coach Smith era in East Lansing, an era which will be defined by his ability to help turn things around for Michigan State’s football program.

Coach Smith has taken over a proud football program that has fallen from the national stage it once stood on. After helping rebuild Oregon State’s program, he will attempt to do the same at Michigan State. It will undoubtedly be a more complex situation for Coach Smith and his coaching staff.

While there are many differences between the situations at Oregon State and Michigan State when he took over, there are also more than a few similarities. Both schools had losing records the two seasons before Coach Smith arrived. Oregon State went 1-11 the season before Coach Smith took over and 4-8 prior. Michigan State went 4-8 last season and 5-7 the season before that.

While at Oregon State, Coach Smith’s biggest in-state rival, Oregon, was and still is a college football powerhouse with a surplus of resources. The same can be said about Michigan State’s biggest in-state rival, who happens to be the defending National Champions. Both situations at rival schools have obviously impacted the respective rebuilds Coach Smith has spearheaded. Still, he has made it clear he will not be patient with Michigan State's rebuilding process.

“All of us [on the coaching staff] are competitive, so we don't have a long patience for playing quality football,” Coach Smith said at Big Ten Media Days. “At the same time, I think you're always building. You're starting somewhere, you're going to create a foundation, and then you're building off of that. So I'm looking forward to that approach of we built something before.

“[We are] not going to panic on the first adversity we see, understanding that, yeah, sometimes there is a process to it, but not going to say that we have patience for [it.] We want to be in a constant state of improvement and build it the right way.”

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