SOUTH BEND, IN – I can't repeat what he yelled when his guys didn't bite on the tomfoolery. But then again, he wasn't just exhaling expletives to acknowledge his team's mental toughness.
Michigan State football coach Pat Fitzgerald was hollering colorful attaboys to celebrate the big-boy football his team was playing, and when Keshawn Williams shed a block to take down Brayden Robinson and stop Notre Dame's punt fake late in the first quarter Saturday, Sept. 19., you could hear Fitzgerald's howling back in East Lansing.
Metaphorically, of course.
But then who knows? Maybe literally, too; Fitzgerald coaches as he played linebacker, and since he can no longer lay out a running back or receiver, that energy has to go somewhere.
State football comes up short but didn't get pushed around
So, yeah, he's gonna pump his fist when his guys make a play, and he's gonna run onto the field to greet them ... yelling.
The sonic booms must be music to those who've longed for the kind of physicality the Spartans showed in their 27-10 loss at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday night – a salve, so to speak.
And while the "[expletive] yeah!" was meant for anyone and everyone on the MSU sideline; it plays for anyone sporting Green and White-tinted glasses watching from home.
Fitzgerald will have to win some of these games to reach Dantonian heights, of course – the program he took over in December has a bit of a climb to get there. But after watching the Spartans buck up, bow up and show up against the third-ranked team in the country, the climb doesn't seem so steep.
Not that he wants anything to do with anyone's pleasant surprise at his team's performance Saturday, despite bookmakers penciling them in for a near-30-point loss.
Beating the spread meant nothing to Fitzgerald
"I'm pissed," he said during the post-game scrum. "We came down here to win a game. We didn't execute ... so I'm really pissed."
You're not taking anything good from this game? to paraphrase the scrum's response.
"Yeah," he snarled, "there's no such things."
Fitzgerald isn't just playing for the camera. His team wouldn't embody his spirit on the field if he were. That they look so invested, three games into his tenure, reveals what he's like when the cameras are off, too.
"Everybody had belief," said Jordan Hall, MSU's star linebacker who returned from an injury to manhandle the Fighting Irish early in the game. He met their ballcarriers at the line of scrimmage and dragged them down on six of MSU's first seven tackles.
They played with that belief, holding Notre Dame to a field goal after giving up a 61-yard catch on the first play of the game, then scoring a touchdown and getting a late stop in the first half to head into the locker room down just 17-10.
It was a game. Surprisingly, perhaps, though obviously not to the Spartans.
They expected it to be one. Planned for it.
And when they got the ball first in the second half with the chance to tie the game, well, that's right where they'd thought they'd be.
MSU didn't score in the second half, and gave up 10 points. Fitzgerald took the blame for not getting his guys ready enough to finish what he believed they could do.
"It's our fault, as coaches," he said, "my fault as the head coach."
And yet they fell behind early on the road to a team full of future NFL'ers and got it back to a single score with 30 minutes to play. They got a couple stops.
They aren't at Notre Dame's level, but they aren't as many levels below as we thought.
Fitzgerald clearly thought better, after taking over a dreary program less than a year ago; he's already dragging it to the light ... and to the fight. Wherever this goes, the rebuild began under the eyes and the outstretched arms of "Touchdown Jesus" on Saturday night.
Or maybe it didn't begin, so much as those on the outside saw glimpses of a beginning.
"I think we got an opportunity to be a very good football team," Fitzgerald said. "We didn't play that way tonight."
No doubt he'll have to say something similar again this season – the Spartans still have five teams (of nine games on the schedule) that made bowls last season – and a loss to one of those will no doubt leave him as pissed as he was here in the visiting press conference room.
But then, that growling is why the Spartans didn't look overwhelmed against a more talented team Saturday.
Fitzgerald built his brand at Northwestern coaxing teams to play above their station, much the way MSU did under Mark Dantonio, and much the way it did Saturday night. Only now, he has more football resources and a different kind of expectation.
The ceiling of the program and where he can get it depends on his eye for talent and his ability to adapt and the depth and quality of his staff. It also depends on his sales pitch and the NIL money needed to back up that pitch.
If all of that is there, he'll have a chance to do something, if for no other reason than what his undermanned team showed in stretches at Notre Dame Stadium.
"Yeah, we'll be a completely different team when we see them in East Lansing [next season]," he said.
Consider that part of his sales pitch, too.
Contact Shawn Windsor: swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
Next up: Cornhuskers
Matchup: Michigan State (2-1, 0-0 Big Ten) vs. Nebraska (3-0); Big Ten opener.
Kickoff: 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 26; Spartan Stadium, East Lansing.
TV/radio: Big Ten Network; WJR-AM (760).
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pat Fitzgerald sales pitch for Michigan State football has major boost
