Michigan State Football officially hires Pat Fitzgerald as its 27th head coach

The Michigan State football program officially named Pat Fitzgerald as its 27th head coach, the university and MSU Vice President and Director of Athletics J. Batt announced Monday.

Fitzgerald, who turns 51 years old on Tuesday, agreed to a five-year contract with MSU, according to ESPN's Pete Thamel.

The hire requires formal approval from the MSU Board of Trustees. The board's next scheduled meeting is on Friday, Dec. 12.

"I am honored to be named the head football coach at Michigan State University," said Fitzgerald. "I'd like to thank President Guskiewicz and Athletics Director Batt for this opportunity. This is a program with a deep and storied tradition, a passionate fan base, and a commitment to excellence that extends far beyond the football field. What excited me most about this opportunity was the vision for what Michigan State can be for years to come. We will restore tradition, and I'm eager to earn the trust of our players, alumni, and fans while competing at the highest level."

Fitzgerald will be formally introduced at a press conference in East Lansing on Tuesday at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. The press conference will be televised live on the Big Ten Network and streamed live on YouTube (Michigan State Spartans Athletics).

"Today marks the beginning of a new era for Michigan State Football," Batt said in a statement. "Pat Fitzgerald is widely recognized as an exceptional football coach, whose teams play with extreme toughness and grit, demonstrate continual improvement and maximize potential. Pat is an excellent fit for Michigan State Football, as he understands the Big Ten, has great relationships throughout the Midwest and embodies the values on which our program was built. His incredible passion will resonate throughout the program, connecting with all members of our Spartan community, including student-athletes, coaches, staff, alumni and donors.

"As an institution, we are committed to providing the resources and infrastructure required to realize our shared vision of competing for championships, and with Pat leading the way, Spartan Football is positioned for sustained success at the Big Ten and national level. We are excited to welcome Pat, his wife, Stacy, and sons, Jack, Ryan and Brendan, to our Spartan family."

Michigan State fired previous head coach Jonathan Smith on Sunday. Smith finished his short tenure in East Lansing with an overall record of 9-15 record. However, all five of his wins from the 2024 season are vacated from the official record due to the use of an ineligible player. This violation happened during Mel Tucker's tenure as head coach at MSU after his staff gave the player impermissible recruiting inducements. Smith was unaware of the ineligible player as the program was not informed of it until after the 2024 campaign ended.

Fitzgerald and his staff will also have to deal with sanctions stemming from the Tucker recruiting violations, as MSU agreed to a negotiated resolution with the NCAA. This includes three years of probation and recruiting restrictions.

After Smith’s firing, momentum around Fitzgerald accelerated quickly. On Saturday night, multiple sources informed Spartans Illustrated that MSU would move on from Smith and pursue Fitzgerald as its leading candidate. At the time, we were not cleared by those sources to make those details public.

"Pat Fitzgerald is a proven leader who understands the full mission of intercollegiate athletics — competitive excellence, academic achievement, and the holistic development of student-athletes," MSU President Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D, said. "His track record of building disciplined, resilient teams and his commitment to coaching with integrity make him an exceptional fit for Michigan State University. I'm confident that under his leadership, Spartan Football will thrive on and off the field."

Fitzgerald spent 17 seasons as the head coach of his alma mater, Northwestern, from the 2006 season through the 2022 season. He tallied a career win-loss record of 110-101 (52.1% wining percentage) while with the Wildcats. Fitzgerald has a career record of 5-5 in bowl games.

He was promoted to the head coaching position at NU on July 7, 2006 after previously having the title of linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator for the Wildcats. Fitzgerald had the difficult task of succeeding Randy Walker, who died suddenly of a heart attack on June 29 of that year.

During his tenure at Northwestern, Fitzgerald put together nine seasons where the Wildcats finished with a winning record. His 110 wins are the most in NU program history. He won two Big Ten West Division titles in 2018 and 2020. Fitzgerald amassed a record of 65-76 in Big Ten play (46.1%).

As a head coach, Fitzgerald has had a total of 22 players he has coached get drafted into the NFL, including three first-round selections. This total number of draftees includes wide receiver Malik Washington, who played at NU from 2019 through 2022 before transferring to Virginia in 2023, and wide receiver Ben Skowronek, who played at Northwestern from 2016 through 2019 before transferring to Notre Dame as a grad transfer in 2020. Several others who played under Fitzgerald were signed as undrafted free agents.

In 2020, Fitzgerald was named as the Big Ten's Hayes–Schembechler Coach of the Year. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award.

Fitzgerald's players also excelled in the classroom. Northwestern placed a program-record 69 players on the Academic All-Big Ten team in the fall of 2020. Meanwhile, in 2019, Northwestern became the first Power-Five conference football team in history to post a perfect Graduation Success Rate score. Northwestern football also had the highest graduation rate of any Division I football program from 2016 through 2022, among various other academic achievements.

While Fitzgerald found success on the field at a traditionally difficult place to win games at in Northwestern, the last couple of years of his tenure were futile. After winning the Big Ten West in 2020 with a 6-1 record in conference play and a 7-2 record overall, Fitzgerald went just 4-20 in his final two seasons with the Wildcats, including 2-16 in Big Ten play. His team also went 3-9 (1-8 in conference play) in 2019. In the two seasons prior to that, though, Fitzgerald's Wildcats went 10-3 (7-2 in Big Ten play) in 2017 and 9-5 (8-1 in conference play to win the Big Ten West Division) in 2018.

It wasn't the on-field results that got Fitzgerald fired from Northwestern, however, as an off off-the-field scandal ended the Fitzgerald era in Evanston. Northwestern terminated Fitzgerald's employment on July 10, 2023 amid allegations of hazing within the football program.

Fitzgerald said that he had no knowledge that hazing was going on within his program. He sued Northwestern for wrongful termination for $130 million in 2023, and eventually settled with the university in August of 2025, although terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Following the settlement, NU's leadership said in a statement that while it did find that the hazing took place, there was not evidence that Fitzgerald was informed of it or that he condoned or directing any inappropriate conduct.

"While the litigation brought to light highly inappropriate conduct in the football program and the harm it caused, the evidence uncovered during extensive discovery did not establish that any player reported hazing to Coach Fitzgerald or that Coach Fitzgerald condoned or directed any hazing," the statement from Northwestern's leadership read. "Moreover, when presented with the details of the conduct, he was incredibly upset and saddened by the negative impact this conduct had on players within the program."

In a November interview with ESPN's "College GameDay" podcast, Fitzgerald said that he felt "fully vindicated" after the settlement and that he was actively seeking a college football head coaching job. Other schools were reportedly interested in hiring Fitzgerald this cycle, including Penn State and Florida, according to Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports.

Fitzgerald is a longtime coaching veteran. His coaching career began as a defensive graduate assistant at Maryland in 1998, working for head coach Ron Vanderlinden, who was Fitzgerald's defensive coordinator when he played for Northwestern. Next, he served as a defensive graduate assistant at Colorado in 1999 under Gary Barnett, who was Fitzgerald's head coach at NU. In 2000, Fitzgerald earned his first full-time assistant coaching job as a linebackers and safeties coach at Idaho, working under head coach Tom Cable.

In 2001, Fitzgerald returned to his alma mater, as Walker hired him to coach Northwestern's defensive backs. Fitzgerald made the switch to coaching the linebackers for NU in 2002 through 2005. He also had the title of recruiting coordinator for the 2004 and 2005 campaigns.

After Fitzgerald's employment was terminated by NU in 2023, he spent time coaching two of his sons at Loyola Academy in Illinois on a volunteer basis for multiple seasons. His son, Ryan Fitzgerald, is currently a true freshman quarterback at Iowa.

Pat Fitzgerald also had a successful playing career for Northwestern from 1993 through 1996. He recorded 299 tackles, 20 tackles for loss, five forced fumbles and three interceptions while playing for the Wildcats. As a player, Fitzgerald was a two-time All-American, two-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and two-time All-Big Ten first-team honoree. He also won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy twice, the Chuck Bednarik Award twice and the Jack Lambert Trophy once.