It’s official, Michigan State football has their new head coach in Jonathan Smith. MSU athletic director Alan Haller did Smith a lot of favors by moving quickly with this hire, which will allow Smith to jump in and get to work immediately.
But, what will Smith need to do first? What will success look like in these hectic first few weeks of the Jonathan Smith era?
We take a look below at the five things Jonathan Smith needs to do first out of the gate.
1
Hire a staff
The absolute first thing Smith will need to do is assemble his staff. It’s been reported that Smith is looking at bringing along a few of his staff members from Oregon State, like DC Trent Bray, OL coach Jim Michaelczik and TE coach Brian Wozniak, but he will also need to flesh out the staff, likely with some people who have experience recruiting in the Midwest and the South.
2
Retain Courtney Hawkins
It could be argued that the most popular, most beloved, and most respected member of the Mel Tucker coaching staff was MSU legend Courtney Hawkins. While Smith is going to want to start fresh, often times, a coach will keep one or two guys from the last staff involved for continuity, and Hawkins would be the best option there. There isn’t a better wide receivers coach out there and Hawkins is loved by the roster.
3
Retain as much of this roster as possible
For all his flaws, Mel Tucker did manage to bring in one of the MSU’s best recruiting classes ever last year, and some of those guys look like absolute studs, like Jordan Hall and Jalen Thompson, for example. Jonathan Smith will need to get to East Lansing with his staff quickly and try to retain as much of this talented roster as possible. He will be starting with a much better talent pool than most new coaches if he’s able to accomplish that.
4
Recruit, Recruit, Recruit
While this hire was met with almost universal acclaim, the one knock on Smith is with recruiting. Smith has spent his whole career on the west coast, and there is skepticism that he will be able to come in and recruit in Detroit, Ohio, and the rest of the Midwest. Smith needs to hit the ground running there and show that, with a program like MSU behind him, he can hit some big home runs on the recruiting trail.
5
Dive into the Transfer Portal
While we mentioned that this roster is sneakily extremely talented for a program with their record welcoming a new coach, there are still gaps, and there could be more gaps if some players decide to jump into the portal. Smith will need to have a concrete transfer portal strategy intact when he arrives to East Lansing to avoid a down year next season while he works on expanding his recruiting network into the Midwest.
