EAST LANSING – Jeff Pretzlaff stood in the stands, watching his son, Brady, dash onto the Spartan Stadium field for his return to college football.
The challenge of a long year and injury recovery was behind the Michigan State football linebacker. A coaching change had given the younger Pretzlaff a new start and some impactful new mentors. And an important one still remained.
Most impressively, the travel travails of Joe Rossi years earlier – through the snow of Up North – had paid off with a connection that remains strong as Brady emerges as a starter for the Spartans.
“Just seeing him back out there, there was just so many feelings that would describe it,” Jeff Pretzlaff said Thursday, Sept. 10. “I was just so happy for him. Just to see all that hard
work that he did, to now get it back. For me personally, I was just blown away. Like, oh my gosh, it’s just crazy to see my son playing in front of 80,000 people out there.”
Brady, a third-year sophomore, had career highs with five tackles and 44 snaps on defense in MSU's 30-20 opening win over Toledo on Sept. 4, his first game action since suffering a season-ending shoulder injury against Youngstown State on Sept. 13, 2025.
Almost a year to the date of having football taken away from him, Pretzlaff is lined up for his second college start when the Spartans (1-0) host Eastern Michigan (1-1) on Saturday (3:30 p.m., Big Ten Network).
The 6-foot-3, 238-pounder credited MSU’s medical and training staff for his recovery and called it “a long buildup” to finally get back to playing the game he loves and learned from his father, who is the defensive coordinator at Gaylord and played at Augustana College in Illinois.
“Honestly, just a grateful feeling in those first few plays, just taking it all in,” Brady said Wednesday.
Back when Mel Tucker was coach at MSU, the Gaylord native initially committed to play for Rossi and P.J. Fleck at Minnesota in January 2023. Then Tucker was fired that fall. And when Tucker's replacement, Jonathan Smith, hired Rossi as defensive coordinator with the Spartans in December that year, Brady quickly decommitted to join them.
The relationship between the Pretzlaff family and Rossi began with multiple recruiting trips from Minneapolis to Gaylord. On one of those visits, Rossi’s two-wheel-drive rental van, picked up after a flight into Traverse City, got stuck in a snow-covered Gaylord parking lot in the dead of winter.
“It’s kind of like a fishing story,” Jeff said with a laugh. “We’ve kind of embellished it over the years.”
Rossi and Brady both smiled about that memory as well after the younger Pretzlaff joined Jordan Hall as MSU’s starting linebackers against Toledo.
“I think it was great experience to get him out there,” Rossi said Wednesday. “I saw him in pregame, and I said, ‘Dude, remember when I made, like, five drives up to Gaylord?’ And I was at Minnesota at the time. I said, ‘It was with the intent for you to be a Big Ten starting linebacker.’ And he got an opportunity to do that here at State.”
Jeff, while he was coaching at Big Rapids High, got his son playing football in third grade. Brady also ran out onto the field during his father's games, grabbing the tee after kickoffs. Jeff also had Brady playing basketball and baseball year-round, but football naturally was the best fit and progressed as they moved to Gaylord, where Brady became a three-star recruit.
“I think the small town just has a different level of grit to it to a certain extent,” Brady said. “The amount of support I’ve had from the town of Gaylord, it’s been huge to me. … And to be able to perform for my family and for them, that means a lot to me. That’s something that I take with me when I’m going to compete.”
It’s a career path, from Up North to East Lansing, similar to that of Brady's new position coach and co-defensive coordinator, Max Bullough (who starred in Traverse City). And along with having Rossi’s tutelage, getting to play under another former All-American in Pat Fitzgerald – who retained Rossi when he was hired in December – has given Brady a graduate-level lesson at linebacker.
“I couldn’t even draw it up myself any more perfectly,” Jeff said of the Spartans’ stacked staff of linebacker knowledge.
MSU’s first-year head coach said he believes Pretzlaff is not even scratching the surface of how good he could be.”
“Brady, I think, is just going to be an absolutely outstanding linebacker in this league,” Fitzgerald said Monday. “He can do it all. He’s physical in block destruction, he can play the pass, he can rush the passer, he’s one of our best special teams players. I think the game – and I don’t want to speak for him – but my opinion, watching the way he works, having the game taken away from him, has highly motivated him.”
Brady said he relied on his family, his faith and his teammates – including leaning on Hall – to get through the arduous rehab with his shoulder and being limited during spring practices. Yet even after going through preseason camp and getting the nod against the Rockets, he felt concerned about how it would be to hit someone full speed again after the injury.
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“But something I learned is once you’re out there and get that first crack of the pads, it’s really like riding a bike,” Brady said. “It all comes back to you.”
The sensation of that first tackle against Toledo ultimately “felt great,” he said. Brady also wants to restore something else – the type of aggressive, physical defense he watched Bullough and the Spartans play while he was growing up 2½ hours away.
“It’s a physical ballgame, and Michigan State’s a physical school,” he said. “Being able to be able to hit there and do a live rep, I mean, that’s what we do it for. That’s a lot of fun.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How LB Brady Pretzlaff fulfilled promise of Michigan State football D
