EAST LANSING – There is a duality to Pat Fitzgerald’s frustrations right now.
After Saturday’s 31-3 lackluster loss at Wisconsin, the Michigan State football coach put the onus on himself and his staff to prepare MSU players better. And he understands the fans’ restlessness amid a three-game losing streak, with bowl hopes starting to look bleak again for the fifth straight year as October arrives.
“I’m sure I can write the tweets. I respect people’s opinions. And if we want to get it fixed, then we should win games. Bottom line,” Fitzgerald said during his weekly press conference Monday, Oct. 5, at Spartan Stadium. “If I was a fan, I would not be happy with us. But that line starts behind me of not being happy.”
Fitzgerald’s dissatisfaction, however,
goes beyond Xs and Os. He put the onus on the Spartans to “do something about it” after “you get your ass kicked” on Saturday, and extrapolated two days later upon analyzing the tape from the Badgers’ beatdown.
“We challenged our guys this: We gotta coach better, but they gotta frickin’ play better, too,” Fitzgerald said Monday. “They gotta play better. So if we want to win, we gotta play better. So it’s all of us together.”
That begins for MSU (2-3, 0-2 Big Ten) with Saturday’s homecoming visit from Illinois (2-3, 0-2). Kickoff is 3:30 p.m. at Spartan Stadium (FS1), and Fitzgerald did not shield his players in all three phases from criticism as they try to get off the schneid in conference play.
Specifically, Fitzgerand honed in on demanding more from an offense that has produced just two touchdowns in three games against power-conference opponents. The Spartans’ inability to reach the end zone in the loss at Wisconsin was their first time without a touchdown against a Big Ten opponent since their 42-0 loss to Penn State ended the 2023 season.
“We gotta score points. That’s the bottom line,” said Fitzgerald, who opted to go for it on fourth down six times and the offense failed to convert on the final five attempts. “We gotta get it across the 50 and score. Going into the game, we were very good on fourth down. Obviously, we were not good enough at all (Saturday).”
MSU managed just 235 total yards against the Badgers and failed to generate a completed pass or run longer than 9 yards. Fitzgerald pointed to protection breakdowns when receivers would get open, then receivers not getting open when the line would block soundly.
“We gotta make more explosive plays,” he said. “And to us, that’s a 12-person operation – it’s us as coaches, it’s the 11 guys on the field.”
That critique of the wideouts also dovetailed into what Fitzgerald sees as some of the struggles of Alessio Milivojevic, who threw for just 103 yards and completed just 15 of 32 passes. He said the receivers are “not making plays for the Q.”
“You gotta be able to catch and run. And we’ve had a lot of catch and fall downs,” Fitzgerald said. “So we gotta help out the quarterback with that. We gotta help him schematically, also.”
Fitzgerald said he has felt the Spartans’ “ball disruption” against Wisconsin with tipped passes and the previous week against Nebraska dislodging balls from the Huskers was good, but the defense is not finishing and turning those plays into turnovers. With starting linebacker Jordan Hall and cornerback Tyran Chappell out, MSU’s defense also struggled to limit Wisconsin’s big-play potential. That included a 47-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw by Colton Joseph and touchdown passes of 15, 20 and 46 yards by the Badgers QB.
“We just didn’t fit some things properly,” Fitzgerald said. “We had a kind of critical (missed assignment) on one of the touchdowns, so the guy was open. That, we gotta coach better, and we talked to the guys about it today.
“And we just didn’t fit some things physical enough, in my opinion. Like the quarterback draw, we got two linebackers there in the 3-technique. That’s exactly what I saw at the game. We gotta shed a block, and we gotta knock the lips off the two guys blocking us. I mean, the guy got through a crack about that big. Like, come on. And then our safety misses a tackle, so that’s four issues on one plays. Those things don’t happen by accident.”
Along with the educational component, there also is need for emotional coaching right now for Fitzgerald and his staff. “At times on Saturday,” he said, “I did not like our attitude.”
Yet he still feels the Spartans are playing hard but lacking in physicality and attempting to do too much and getting out of sorts. And Fitzgerald is focused on getting them “playing under control mentally and emotionally so we can play physically.”
“I think when things don’t go your way, that frustration has gotta become motivation. It’s the only way to approach it,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. Been in some great streaks of winning and some tough streaks, a couple tough weeks.
“You want to get it fixed? Win. It’s a really easy solution. It cures a lot of ills. So find a way to win.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: MSU's Pat Fitzgerald: 'If I was a fan, I would not be happy with us'
