Michigan State football writer Chris Solari gives five bold predictions for the Spartans heading into the 2026 season.
1. Spartans will earn a bowl berth … barely
Under Mark Dantonio, MSU perennially had a postseason trip to look forward to. And it was a slow build – from three years without a bowl game to the Champs Sports Bowl in 2007, Dantonio’s debut, all the way to the highwater mark of the College Football Playoff in 2015. The program went to a bowl game 12 times in Dantonio’s 13 seasons.
The Spartans have not been to one since the 2021 Peach Bowl win over Pitt under Mel Tucker, his only appearance and MSU’s lone trip in six seasons since Dantonio retired following the 2019 Pinstripe Bowl victory over Wake Forest. The four-year bowl drought is the Spartans’ longest since going from
the Rose Bowl at the end of the 1965 season until returning to the postseason at the 1984 Cherry Bowl.
Tucker got fired for off-field issues, and his tenure produced three sub-.500 teams. Jonathan Smith replaced him and went 5-7 and 4-8, getting fired after last season. Now enters Pat Fitzgerald, who took Northwestern to 10 bowl appearances in 17 seasons with his alma mater from 2006-22. He is 5-5 in those trips, winning his last four appearances − though he missed the postseason in his final two seasons as the Wildcats went a combined 4-20 overall and 2-16 in the Big Ten.
MSU’s schedule sets up favorably in many ways, with a Sept. 19 road game at Notre Dame and a tough trip to Wisconsin on Oct. 3 being big early-season tests. The Spartans don’t have to play reigning national champ Indiana or 2025 national champ Ohio State, nor do they face USC or Penn State. That does not mean the path is easy, with Michigan, Oregon and Washington all tough challenges – but the former Pac-12 schools both visit East Lansing in November.
Unlike Smith, Fitzgerald knows how to navigate the ups and downs of the Big Ten and the physical demands of playing high-level competition weekly. He is “cut from the same cloth” as Dantonio, as he said at Big Ten media days, and he understands that as MSU’s all-time winningest coach said on his way out that six wins are a baseline for where the Spartans should be. And with enough coin flip games in the middle of the season, Fitzgerald could possibly surpass that if his starters can stay healthy and the depth pieces can develop normally.
2. Cam Edwards, OL restore run game
Fitzgerald also understands the road to a bowl game or a championship needs to be graded by big, burly offensive linemen who can move defenses for running backs who hit holes with power and speed.
Hence why he loaded up the run game for offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan by bringing in massive Ben Murawski and Nick Sharpe to form a stout left side and center Trent Fraley to be the epicenter. That emphasis, along with keeping versatile Conner Moore, gives MSU the type of first-line force that helped Dantonio’s team grind down opponents, though the depth beyond them remains untested but promising.
Fitzgerald also added Cam Edwards from Connecticut along with three other transfer running backs to complement returnees Brandon Tullis and Jace Clarizio. The Spartans have produced just one 1,000-yard rusher since 2014, and that was 2021 Doak Walker Award winner Kenneth Walker III. Otherwise, MSU has finished outside the top 100 in rushing yards in the Football Bowl Subdivision every other year since 2018 and has not led the Big Ten in conference run yardage since 1990.
While it might not lead to Walker-level production, re-establishing the emphasis on the run game also will take pressure off quarterback Alessio Milivojevic both mentally and physically. Last season, MSU averaged 122.8 rushing yards and ranked 109th out of 134 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. That failure to generate ground traction allowed opposing defenses to pin their ears back and blitz frequently knowing the Spartans had to pass, and MSU’s 37 sacks allowed last season were the 12th-most in the nation.
3. Joe Rossi’s defense will be top 5 in the Big Ten
Keeping defensive coordinator Joe Rossi was a priority for Fitzgerald, and the continuity on that side of the ball along with interspersing proven veterans through the transfer portal should continue the late-season ascent the Spartans showed on that side of the ball a year ago.
Depth is questionable simply based on the number of young players behind starters such as linebacker Jordan Hall, safety Nikai Martinez and defensive tackle Ben Roberts. Generating a better pass rush is imperative, with the hopes that transfer Kenny Soares Jr., and holdovers Anelu Lafaele and Isaac Smith can be disruptive and affect opposing QBs. But having Fitzgerald, a former linebacker, and new co-coordinator/linebackers coach Max Bullough along with him should allow Rossi to unleash more wrinkles and get the Spartans playing like some of his best defenses at Minnesota did.
4. Kayd Coffman will be No. 2 QB by midseason
Milivojevic immediately became entrenched as the starter after meeting with Fitzgerald after he was hired in December. He started the final four games a year ago and delivered MSU’s only Big Ten win in the finale over Maryland. The third-year sophomore remains raw, but he is starting to exude the confidence Fitzgerald wants from a starting quarterback.
Behind him, it gets a little tricky.
The Spartans brought in well-traveled sixth-year transfer Cam Fancher, who has made 28 starts at three different schools the past four years. As fans saw in 2024 when he started for the Florida Atlantic team that MSU beat in its opener that year, Fancher brings a running component to the position and looked limited with his arm. His experience, though, makes him a solid stop-gap should Milivojevic get injured and need to miss some plays or a game this season.
But should Milivojevic struggle with the demands in his first year as the full-time starter, Fancher is not a long-term answer. Coffman is a four-star recruit from East Kentwood High who displayed a powerful arm in the spring and leapfrogged redshirt freshman Leo Hannan after enrolling at MSU in January. With the ability to play five years now and no redshirts any longer, watch for Coffman to get an extended look if the offense is sputtering to see if he has what it takes to get MSU back to competing for championships.
5. Pat Fitzgerald will start to become the face of MSU athletics
One of the biggest thing Fitzgerald has preached to his players in the offseason is the need to communicate and overcommunicate to get the details fine-tuned.
In many ways, he has done so himself. He’s won over many of the doubters from the time of his hiring by being personable, talking toughness and showing an understanding of MSU’s traditions and history. Most of all, by embracing the tenets of Dantonio’s program that led the Spartans to their most success in more than a half-century during the 2010s. There is no reinventing the wheel; for Fitzgerald, it’s simply about realigning the belts to make MSU the most ferocious and tenacious team on the Big Ten block. With that, he won the season.
After being fired and eventually exonorated by Northwestern, Fitzgerald has something to prove. No longer in the shadow of four pro teams in the nation’s third-largest media market, that breathing room is allowing people to get to know what many around the Midwest who did not pay attention to Northwestern have known. He’s as hungry as Tom Izzo is for a second national championship in basketball and with the personality to match.
Fitzgerald, at 51, is at the same age as Dantonio was when he took over the Spartans. If he can win consistently, maybe even getting to Dantonio’s level, he has an opportunity to become Izzo’s successor as the voice of the university that gave him a second chance. As they’ve said many times over, they’re beer-and-burger guys who fit the fabric of what MSU has been about back to the days of Biggie Munn and Duffy Daugherty – men of the people with a program for the people.
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football: 5 bold predictions for 2026 season
