Jonathan Smith expects Michigan State football to be in hunt for a bowl game
INDIANAPOLIS – Jonathan Smith refrained from making any bold pronouncements in his debut appearance Wednesday at Big Ten Media Days. But the first-year Michigan State football coach also didn’t try to undersell his program’s expectations.
“We’re definitely trying to win, and we’re definitely trying to win more than we lose,” Smith said.
While it’s an ambitious goal, it’s also not entirely unreasonable one either considering the Spartans, amid the toxic fallout from Mel Tucker’s mid-season firing, would have reached bowl eligibility last fall had they not squandered fourth-quarter leads in a pair of losses to Iowa and Rutgers.
“We let a few games slip through our hands,” Dillon Tatum recalled about that doomed 4-8 squad.
It’s why the junior safety told reporters Wednesday he had “no doubt” MSU will qualify for the postseason for the first time since 2021, which will be remembered as the illusory high point of Tucker’s tenure.
“I don’t see why that would be out of the question,” Tatum added.
Tatum bases his confident outlook on the arrival of dual-threat transfer quarterback Aidan Chiles, the potential improvement of an offense that averaged the second-fewest points in the conference and the increased stamina of a defense that is banking on playing fewer snaps this season if MSU can eliminate the time of possession deficit that had been a featured element of the Tucker era.
“Because of what happened last year, people look down on Michigan State,” running back Nate Carter said. “They say that we don’t have talent; we don’t have the ability to win. I don’t believe that is true.”
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The meager perception of the Spartans from the outside was reaffirmed this week. In one media poll conducted by Cleveland.com, MSU was picked to finish 16th out of 18 teams in the inaugural year of the league’s latest expansion phase. In another, published by the USA TODAY Sports Network, the Spartans were ranked No. 12. ESPN’s Football Power Index, meanwhile, projects the Spartans to win fewer than five games following an offseason when 38 players transferred out and 24 came to East Lansing from other college programs.
Asked about all of these dismal forecasts Wednesday, Smith offered a dismissive response, saying he has never put a “ton of weight” into the preseason prognostications.
“It all comes down to what it looks like in the fall,” he added.
If all goes according to plan, the final picture could be pretty attractive, according to Smith’s boss, athletic director Alan Haller.
“A product that we can all gravitate towards,” Haller said. “Obviously we want to be in a bowl game. We want to be in the hunt for something towards the end of the season. At the end of the day, when the games are over, we want our fans and alumni base and our players to feel really good about what they see and what they feel coming from the program.”
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: A bowl game for Michigan State football? Spartans plan to be in hunt
