Craig Has The Scout - Michigan State 2026
Coming Up
Who: Michigan State Spartans
When: Saturday, October 10, 2026; 2:30pm
Where: Spartan Stadium, East Lansing, MI
How: FS1
Opponent Primer:
Head Coach: Pat Fitzgerald.
Pat Fitzgerald is the walking version of the Dunning–Kruger Effect, carrying the confidence of a man convinced he is a tactical mastermind even though he went 110–101 at Northwestern while riding the soft cushion of the old B1G West. Northwestern’s media chorus treated him like a sage. Give him a microphone and he could talk for three hours about his brilliance while everyone with a Merrill degree nodded along. His greatest achievement might have been convincing people that a .521 career winning percentage meant he was ready for the NFL, a feat of self‑promotion that deserves its own museum wing.
He peaked during the bleakest stretch of the B1G West. The division launched in 2014 and Fitzy stacked three nine‑win seasons while the neighborhood looked like a yard sale. Illinois rolled out Beckman, Cubit, and Lovie. Nebraska wandered through Mike Riley and Scott Frost. Purdue tried to survive the Hazell era. Fitzy feasted during those years. Then the neighbors started renovating. Purdue hired Brohm. Illinois hired Bret. Nebraska hired Rhule. Suddenly Patty Fitz could not clear four wins. His genius turned out to be building a program calibrated to squeeze out victories against a buffet of mediocrity, which never quite matched his belief that he was playing four‑dimensional chess.
Northwestern fired him in 2023 after an investigation into widespread hazing and a finding that he failed to know or prevent it, ignoring signs of a deeply broken team culture. The school said the evidence did not establish that he knew, condoned, or directed the hazing. Michigan State administrators also ignored warnings about a torrent of reports involving their athletes. That makes him an oddly perfect fit in East Lansing. It is a marriage of two institutions that believe culture is something you can miss entirely if you squint so hard you close your eyes. Fitzgerald gets another chance to prove that leadership can be performed without noticing what happens on your team and Michigan State gets to find out whether “Spartans Will” includes knowing what the coach is doing inside your own locker room.
Offensive Style: Run Heavy Kalen DeBoer style Pro Spread.
Nick Sheridan is the Michigan State offensive coordinator carrying all the vibes of Matt Nagy, permanent understudy to guys who know offense. He was a quarterback at Michigan before grabbing a GA spot and leading Willie Taggart’s QB room at Western Kentucky. He followed Taggart to South Florida like a loyal intern who knew exactly how the boss liked his coffee and never asked why the offense kept stalling. Then came the Butch Jones Tennessee experience, where he worked under Mike DeBord and learned what it looks like when a program tries to motivate its way out of structural problems. DeBord took him to Indiana, where Kalen DeBoer kept him around, and Tom Allen eventually handed him the keys to the offense. Sheridan did not keep the good times rolling, but he did have a friend in DeBoer, who brought him to Washington and then to Alabama. His stint running the offense was short lived in Tuscaloosa as the Tide wobbled. Now he is in East Lansing trying to rinse off the Hoosier residue and prove he can run an offense without DeBoer standing nearby like a guardian angel.
Sheridan’s offense leans on spread concepts with quick reads and rhythmic throws, all built to keep the ball moving without asking the offensive line to perform miracles. The run game mixes zone and gap schemes depending on which linemen are upright that week. Motion and formation variety try to disguise intentions and create a little controlled chaos, the kind that keeps defenses from settling in. When it works, the whole thing looks smooth and balanced, kind of like what Alabama is doing this season. When it does not, the Spartans have all the coordination of a middle school band trying to play a fight song for the first time. Sheridan wants Michigan State to be efficient, adaptable, and occasionally explosive, which is a polite way of saying he is trying to build an offense that does not make fans sigh before the ball is snapped.
Defensive Style: 4-2-5 using 2-high shells.
Joe Rossi is a football coach grinder who clawed his way up from the trenches at Thiel College and Maine before earning a power conference shot with Kyle Flood at Rutgers. Surviving Rutgers in 2012 is usually enough to send a coach into witness protection, but Rossi came out clean and landed at Minnesota ready to row with PJ Fleck. The Robb Smith experience pushed Fleck to hand Rossi the defensive keys late in 2018, and Rossi promptly turned Minnesota’s defense into a stingy, fundamentally sound machine that kept finishing in the top ten nationally. It was the kind of turnaround that gets noticed and helps a coordinator build a reputation.
Rossi’s defense is built on disciplined, bend don’t break principles inside a 4‑2‑5 structure that smothers explosive plays and forces opponents to string together long, patient drives. When it’s humming, the linebackers move with purpose and the run fits stay tight, which gives the whole thing a steady and annoying quality. Pressure comes from calculated calls instead of chaos, so the defense often looks organized, efficient, and quietly suffocating. Jonathan Smith poached him to bring that same toughness to East Lansing, and even though Smith did not last, Fitzgerald kept Rossi on because he wanted Michigan State to be physical, reliable, and fundamentally sound. He is hoping he found his next Mike Hankwitz. So, Rossi is trying to build that defense which is an impressive exercise in square-peg engineering. The Spartans are asking a low-ceiling unit to perform high-wire acrobatics just to cover for an offense that is stuck in neutral.
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