Michigan State plans to hire former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald to lead its football program, according to a person familiar with the situation.
The person, who spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday on condition of anonymity because the expected hiring had not been made public, said an announcement would come this week.
The anticipated arrival of Fitzgerald comes after Michigan State fired Jonathan Smith on Sunday, two years after he was hired.
“The 2025 football season has not lived up to our shared standards for Michigan State Football,” athletic director J Batt said in a statement. “While that does not fall solely on Jonathan Smith, it’s become necessary to make a coaching change in order to chart a new direction for the program.”
The 50-year-old Fitzgerald reached a settlement with Northwestern in August, two years after he sued the university amid a team hazing scandal that led to his firing following an investigation. Details of the settlement were not made public.
Former Northwestern football players started filing lawsuits in 2023, alleging sexual abuse and racial discrimination on the team. Similar allegations then spread across several sports.
Fitzgerald denied wrongdoing and sued for $130 million. He alleged the school illegally terminated his employment and damaged his reputation, among other things. His case was set to go to trial this month.
Fitzgerald was an All-America linebacker for the Wildcats and starred on the 1995 team that won the Big Ten and played in the Rose Bowl.
He was 110-101 in 17 seasons as Northwestern’s head coach. He led the Wildcats to Big Ten West championships in 2018 and 2020 and to five bowl victories. Over his final two seasons, though, Northwestern was 4-20.
Michigan State lost eight of its last nine games to finish 4-8 this season. Smith’s overall record at MSU was 9-15 and just 4-14 in the Big Ten. Smith is due more than $30 million, according to terms of his seven-year contract.
Smith was 34-35 over six seasons at Oregon State, winning at least eight games in consecutive seasons for the first time in more than a decade at his alma mater. He went 5-7 overall and 3-6 in the Big Ten during his debut season last year. His seat got warm when athletic director Alan Haller, who hired him, left the school last May.
Expectations were low for this season and the results were worse.
The Spartans followed up wins against Western Michigan, Boston College and Youngstown State with an 0-8 start in Big Ten play. They lost to USC, Nebraska, UCLA, Indiana and Michigan by double digits before blowing a late lead and losing at Minnesota by three points in overtime. The only league win came Saturday against Maryland.
Smith benched quarterback Aidan Chiles, who followed him from Oregon State, against the Golden Gophers and gave redshirt freshman Alessio Milivojevic a shot to start perhaps with an eye toward the future the coach no longer has at Michigan State.
The program has struggled since the school’s winningest coach, Mark Dantonio, retired and ended a record-breaking, 13-year run with consecutive 7-6 seasons and a .500 Big Ten record over two years.
With limited choices in the winter of 2020, inexperienced athletic director Bill Beekman hired Mel Tucker after he went 5-7 in one season at Colorado and had ties to the school as a graduate assistant under Nick Saban
Tucker led the Spartans to an 11-2 record in 2021 and the school rewarded him with a $95 million, 10-year contract. The school fired him early in the 2023 season after he said he had consensual phone sex with an activist and rape survivor.
Michigan State does not have a scandal to recover from during its latest attempt to fix its program, but it faces a big challenge to find someone who can win consistently in the expanded and highly competitive Big Ten.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
By LARRY LAGE
AP Sports Writer
