PASADENA, CA – The path to Kayd Coffman’s first career start as a college quarterback began nearly a week earlier.
Pat Fitzgerald said the Michigan State football injury dossier coming out of a loss to Northwestern on Oct. 17 was a reliatively clean bill of health, all things considered.
Until his phone rang the next day.
“And that obviously changed,” Fitzgerald said after losing, 28-10, to No. 10 UCLA on Saturday, Oct. 24
.Quarterback Alessio Milivojevic wasn’t 100%. Even though Fitzgerald did not reveal the injury to the third-year sophomore – who started MSU’s previous 11 games – after playing every snap in a 24-21 loss to the Wildcats, it was serious enough for the first-year coach to begin preparing to head to the Rose Bowl without Milivojevic available.
No hints of anything amiss were given until Milivojevic showed up on Wednesday’s availability report as questionable. He was officially ruled out two hours before Saturday’s kickoff, thrusting Coffman – a true freshman out of Kentwood – into the starting role after just 11 snaps in mop-up duty against Wisconsin on Oct. 3.
The four-star recruit started strong, connecting on his first four passes and throwing a 14-yard swing pass to Kenneth Williams for a touchdown on MSU’s second drive. That came after Coffman moved the Spartans to UCLA’s 38 on the game-opening drive before Fitzgerald opted to punt.
But the Spartans' afternoon unraveled quickly as the Bruins’ pressure began to increase. Coffman missed on his next six passes, one of them an interception. Fitzgerald said the play design on the pick was for Coffman to throw to tight end Brennan Paracheck, running open down the seam to his left; instead, Coffman forced a throw to Bryson Williams to his right in heavy traffic. UCLA safety Donavyn Pellot picked it off and flipped the field with a 67-yard return.
“We don’t know why he chose to go to the [wide side of the] field, chose to go that way,” Fitzgerald said in his postgame availability. “So credit to their kid for picking it off. He was reading his eyes and just took it right out of his hand basically. As an old linebacker, to me, when you read a young guy’s eyes, it’s pretty easy.”
Coffman finished 4-for-10 for 42 yards while taking three sacks, including two of his last three snaps.
“We want to keep the pocket as clean as possible for him, make it easy on him to just do his reads and throw the ball to open receivers,” center Trent Fraley said of getting Coffman comfortable. “That's something we didn’t do for him today as an offensive line. We just need to make it cleaner for it him and let him have a better game.”
Still, Fitzgerald had high praise for Coffman, who went from facing Grand Haven in Week 9 of the Michigan high school football season 365 days ago to facing a top-10 team in the mecca of college football on Saturday.
“We had great confidence in him,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s ebb and flow of each practice and each day. But he really works his tail off, one of the first guys in the building and one of the last guys to leave, even though he was not necessarily the starter going into the season. …
“It’s not easy getting your first start against the [No. 10] team in the country. And we’re just really proud of him. And he’s gonna learn and grow from every rep that he took.”
Nearing the end of the third quarter, Fitzgerald and offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan opted for a switch at quarterback. Leo Hannan, a Southern California kid from Long Beach, made his collegiate debut with 57 seconds left in the third quarter and finished the game.
“Kayd had done nothing wrong,” Fitzgerald said. “We were, ‘Let’s go to the bullpen. Let’s give this young man a shot.’”
With UCLA already ahead comfortably at 28-7, Hannan finished 9-for-15 for 67 yards and directed a drive capped by a 46-yard Liam Boyd field goal with 5:29 to play. But the redshirt freshman also threw a deep ball up for grabs that was picked off on MSU’s next possession.
“I’m really proud of Leo. To come home and to get an opportunity in a game, I hope that was as special for him as it was for us to see him go out and play,” Fitzgerald said. “There were some really good things by him, and then there were some other things I think he was probably a little frustrated with.”
MSU did not make either quarterback available after Saturday's loss to UCLA. Milivojevic was helping to mentor them on the sideline throughout the game, not knowing when he may be able to return.
And the other veterans who continue to give maximum effort, even as the season spirals on them, appreciated what the two young quarterbacks did to give the Spartans a shot at a major road upset.
“They did a great job stepping in and really doing their part for this team,” Fraley said.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Injury-hit Michigan State football went for boost with 4th QB of 2026
