Michigan State football is a mess as Spartans come to Iowa City to face the Iowa Hawkeyes

CEDAR RAPIDS - You had this for Jonathan Smith to deal with on top of everything else.

It was announced last week that Michigan State is receiving three years of NCAA probation for rules violations that took place in 2022 and 2023. Additionally, 14 wins accrued from 2022 through 2024 have been vacated.

The NCAA and Michigan State negotiated the resolution. The school was fined $30,000 plus 1.5 percent of the football program’s budget.

The transgressions occurred under the watch of previous coach Mel Tucker. MSU staff members provided “impermissible recruiting inducements and benefits and unofficial visit expenses” to recruits.

The reason the 14 wins have been vacated is because three Spartans players deemed ineligible actually played in games. How in the world does that happen?

“That's a good question,” Smith said. “Because often times, all the time, any player that participates in an NCAA game is cleared eligibility wise through compliance offices. And so, on our end, we were not aware of that when it was taking place.”

Smith is in his second season as head coach at Michigan State, and things have not gone well. Hired away from Oregon State after a great five-season run there, Smith is 3-14 in East Lansing, though, again, consider the five wins from last season that have been taken away.

Michigan State won its first three games this season: 23-6 over Western Michigan, 42-40 over Boston College and 41-24 over Youngstown State. It has been nothing but losses since then, including last week to Penn State at home, 28-10.

Seven of them, to be exact, all of them in Big Ten Conference play. All but one have been by multiple scores, the exception being a 23-20 overtime loss Nov. 1 at Minnesota.

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The Spartans’ defense has been porous, giving up 34.5 points per game in Big Ten play. The hyenas are howling something fierce for Smith to lose his job.

“We want to have some success and win a game,” he told reporters last week. “I do think we’re showing that these guys are playing with great effort, and it means a ton to them. We’ve gotta get better, we gotta grow, we gotta develop. We need another year of development of the current roster and the recruiting class to keep getting this thing in a better direction.

“I’m still confident in our approach. Yeah, this game is not for the shy. This ain’t easy, this is a big-time league. It’s competitive and tough, you’re playing big-time coaches and players week in and week out. And we’ve taken a couple of lumps. We’re taking some body blows, is what we’ll call it. I know it’s not a lack of effort out of this coaching staff and those players in there.”

Smith’s contract with Michigan State was for seven years and $52.8 million. His buyout is 85 percent of the remaining money on it, which would be $32.5 million if he is let go after this season.

Keep in mind that the aforementioned Tucker has sued Michigan State for wrongful termination. He was fired in the fall of 2023 after sexual-harassment allegations were brought forth by a woman Michigan State hired to speak to players about sexual abuse.

That woman, Brenda Tracy, was a rape survivor. She has filed lawsuits against both Tucker and Michigan State.

In other words, this whole thing is a mess right now for the Michigan State football program. The Spartans play Saturday afternoon against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Kinnick Stadium (2:35 p.m. kickoff/FS1).

"As coaches, we want to model a way so what we ask of our players, can we model the same in regards to going back to work, understanding that, yeah, we’ve come up short,” Smith said. “Well, what do you do? You start to point the finger, that kind of thing? You own what you control, we do this thing together and all of those things.

"I try to model in regards to being the leader of a group of guys that have been working really hard. We’ve come up short and that’s tough to go through but a lot of times the best things in life come after hard. I’m still optimistic on that end.”

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com