Fitzgerald debuts at Michigan State hosting Toledo
Pat Fitzgerald's first game as Michigan State's coach is Friday night against Toledo, with Alessio Milivojevic entrenched at quarterback after a coaching and front-office overhaul in East Lansing.
A new coach, a new AD, and a settled quarterback
Michigan State fired Jonathan Smith on November 30, 2025, closing out a 9-15 tenure that opened 3-0 before eight straight Big Ten losses buried the season, ESPN reported. Pat Fitzgerald, out of coaching since his Northwestern exit, was hired to replace him and takes his first game as Michigan State's coach on Friday against Toledo.
The one thing Fitzgerald did not have to sort out this camp was the quarterback room. Alessio Milivojevic, who threw for 1,267 yards and 10 touchdowns in relief duty a year ago, has been the undisputed starter for weeks now, 247Sports' Zach Brooks wrote, with the staff comfortable enough in him that they never bothered chasing a portal arm to push him.
The administration turned over too. Dan Bartholomae, hired away from Western Michigan, signed a five-year deal averaging $1.71 million annually to become Michigan State's athletic director, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported, and called it "a dream come true and a tremendous honor for my family and I to join the Spartan community" when the school made it official. New coach, new QB1, new AD — this is a program starting over in almost every chair that matters.
Last season ended on the only high note it had
Michigan State finished 2025 at 4-8 and 1-8 in Big Ten play, ESPN's coverage of the coaching change noted, with the last five games alone going Michigan L 20-31, Minnesota L 20-23, Penn State L 10-28, Iowa L 17-20 and finally Maryland W 38-28 to snap the eight-game slide.
That Maryland finale on November 30 doubled as the last game of Smith's tenure — Michigan State fired him the same day. It is the one result from a lost season that a fan can point to and smile about, and it is also the last data point anybody has on this roster before Fitzgerald's staff puts its own stamp on it Friday.
Toledo is no cupcake under its own new coach
Toledo is breaking in a first-year coach of its own in Mike Jacobs, but the Rockets are not rebuilding — the MAC's preseason coaches poll picked them third, behind only Western Michigan and Miami, and nine Rockets landed on the preseason All-MAC teams, per Toledo's athletic department. That is a program that expects to contend, not one just happy to be in East Lansing.
Junior quarterback John Alan Richter returns behind a veteran offensive line with four returning starters, and Toledo brought in one of the MAC's best transfer classes to go with it, according to the school's own release. In the payload, Toledo shows 0-0 with no games played this season; the only form on the board is last year's 22-27 loss at Louisville to close 2025.
A double-digit line for Fitzgerald's first game
Kickoff is Friday night vs. Toledo at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, and the line opened with Michigan State favored by 10.5 points with the total set at 49.5 — a number that reads low-scoring for a season opener between two teams nobody has real tape on yet.
It is Fitzgerald's first game on the Michigan State sideline and Milivojevic's first true start of the Fitzgerald era, against a Toledo team that arrives with its own coaching change and a poll ranking to defend. Neither team has played a snap that counts in 2026, so this line is as much a projection of the offseason turnover on both sidelines as it is anything drawn from tape.