When a team loses any game, especially a rivalry game, excuses and finger-pointing are bound to follow. For Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith, he was looking for answers after losing 31-20 to the Michigan Wolverines on Saturday night.
Michigan’s defense was often in control, totaling four sacks and six tackles for loss along with a fumble recovery. The Spartans were 5-of-16 on third down, 1-of-3 on fourth down, and had just 305 yards of total offense. Michigan State quarterback Aidan Chiles
completed just five of his first 17 passes before finishing the game 14-of-28 for 130 yards. Michigan’s defense, despite giving up a couple of late touchdowns in the fourth quarter, held Chiles and the MSU offense in check. However, Jonathan Smith gave Michigan lukewarm credit for their defensive performance and gave his team credit for making Michigan look good.
“They’ve got a solid scheme. They’ve got some solid players. We definitely helped them to look better,” Smith said.
It can be argued that it was actually the other way around, that Michigan’s defense helped the MSU offense look better, allowing a garbage-time MSU touchdown with seven seconds left in the game. While Smith may not have meant for that comment to come across like a backhanded compliment, it certainly reads as such.
Smith, now in his second season at MSU, is 0-2 against Michigan, and he may not be the coach when these teams play again in 2026 — as The Athletic put it, the “Jonathan Smith era is just starting, and probably soon ending.”
