Report: Michigan State plans to hire Pat Fitzgerald as next head football coach

Michigan State University is planning to name Pat Fitzgerald as its 27th head football coach, according to a report from Chris Solari of the Detroit Free Press and Graham Couch of the Lansing State Journal.

Sources told Spartans Illustrated on Saturday that Fitzgerald was expected to be MSU's top target if the university moved on from Jonathan Smith. Michigan State fired Smith on Sunday afternoon.

Solari and Couch report that a contract had not been signed as of mid-day Sunday, however.

Fitzgerald has not coached a college game since 2022, but spent 17 seasons as the head coach of his alma mater, Northwestern. He compiled a career coaching record of 110-101 with the Wildcats.

Fitzgerald's hiring comes after Michigan State parted ways with Smith. In two seasons in East Lansing, Smith compiled a 9-15 record, although five of those wins are vacated from the official record due to the use of an ineligible player, unbeknownst to Smith and stemming from Mel Tucker's tenure as head coach at MSU.

He took over the Northwestern program under difficult circumstances in early July of 2006, as Fitzgerald succeeded Randy Walker, who died of a heart attack on June 29 of that year. Fitzgerald was working as the Wildcats' linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator before being promoted to head coach.

From 2006 through the 2022 campaign, Fitzgerald put together nine seasons where the Wildcats finished with a winning record. He won two Big Ten West Division titles in 2018 and 2020, and had a 5-5 record in bowl games. Fitzgerald finished with a record of 65-76 in Big Ten play. Fitzgerald also has had 20 of his players drafted into the NFL.

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 saw a lot of success off of the field. Northwestern placed a program-record 69 players on the Academic All-Big Ten team in the fall of 2020. Additionally, in 2019, Northwestern became the first Power-Five conference football team ever to post a perfect Graduation Success Rate score.

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.

However, it was off-the-field events that caused Fitzgerald's tenure in Evanston to end in controversy. Northwestern fired Fitzgerald on July 10, 2023 amid allegations of hazing within the football program.

Fitzgerald claimed that he had no knowledge that hazing was going on within his program. He sued Northwestern University for wrongful termination for $130 million in 2023, and went on to settle with the school in 2025, though terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

In a statement released after the settlement, Northwestern said that, "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."

In November, Fitzgerald told ESPN that he felt "vindicated" after the settlement and that he was actively seeking a college football head coaching job.

Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports reports that Fitzgerald "garnered interest from several schools," during this coaching carousel, including Penn State and Florida.

After Fitzgerald's employment was terminated by NU, he spent time coaching his two sons at Loyola Academy in Illinois on a volunteer basis.

Fitzgerald started his coaching career as a defensive graduate assistant at Maryland in 1998 under Ron Vanderlinden, who was Fitzgerald's defensive coordinator when he played for the Wildcats. He had that same role at Colorado in 1999 under his head coach at NU, Gary Barnett. In 2000, he got his first full-time assistant coaching job as a linebackers and safeties coach at Idaho working for head coach Tom Cable.

In 2001, Fitzgerald returned to his alma mater to coach defensive backs at Northwestern under Walker. Fitzgerald coached the linebackers for NU in 2002 through 2005, and also added the title of recruiting coordinator for the 2004 and 2005 seasons.

Fitzgerald played football for the Wildcats from 1993 through 1996 and 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 as a player.