Progress of Any Kind Should be the Goal for Coach Jonathan Smith and Michigan State

As Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith enters his first season at the helm, realistic expectations are important. Coach Smith's main goal this season should simply be to make progress.

Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith talks the media on the first national signing day for college football recruits Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing. / Nick King/Lansing State Journal / USA

Coach Jonathan Smith and Michigan State are entering the first season of what is expected to be a complete rebuilding of the football program. Like any competent coach, Coach Smith has his own goals in mind, which likely consist of success on the recruiting trail, in the transfer portal, and on the football field. These are understandable and reachable goals for Coach Smith and his coaching staff in their first season in East Lansing. 

Smith and his coaching staff have already succeeded in the transfer portal. After a difficult start, Smith and Michigan State added enough players through the transfer portal this offseason to finish with one of the better transfer portal classes in the Big Ten and the country. 

A productive June led to Smith and his coaching staff securing about as good of an offseason on the recruiting trail as expected. Michigan State added many talented players to its 2025 recruiting class in June, helping improve what was initially one of the worst 2025 recruiting classes in the Big Ten. Smith and his coaching staff did an admirable job of turning a negative into a positive in just a few weeks. 

As Smith and Michigan State prepare to play one of the most challenging schedules in the country, they will undoubtedly face more than a little bit of adversity over the next few months. Usually, coaches and football teams are judged primarily on wins and losses. However, for a coach in his first season of a rebuild at a college football program, wins and losses are generally not the standard by which they are judged. This is especially the case for more difficult rebuilds, such as the one Coach Smith and his coaching staff will oversee in East Lansing.

Many metrics will determine how successful Smith and his coaching staff were at Michigan State. Those metrics will become more complex and increase the longer they are at the helm. However, for Smith’s first season at Michigan State, the only goal they should have is to make progress in as many areas as possible. That may or may not translate to wins in year one, but it could lead to the long-term success of the football program.

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