He led the team to a dismal 1-8 in the Big Ten this season, and a 4-8 record overall.<\/p>\n
The brutal season marks the university\u2019s fourth consecutive losing year, which is a stretch that hasn\u2019t been seen since 1983, when it spanned across five years (1979-83). The historic mark likely forced Michigan State\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
Smith will be owed $33 million of what was a seven-year deal. <\/p>\n
![\"Head](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/head-coach-jonathan-smith-michigan-116060435.jpg\")
Head coach Jonathan Smith of the Michigan State Spartans walks the sidelines in the second half against the Iowa Hawkeyes on November 22, 2025 at Kinnick Stadium, in Iowa City, Iowa. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Smith will leave with a 9-15 record on his resume across the two years. He also holds a 4-14 record against Big Ten opponents, including the 2024 season wins that were vacated due to NCAA violations committed by former head coach Mel Tucker and his staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Smith is the second Big Ten coach to lose his job in the 2025 season, following former Penn State coach James Franklin.<\/p>\n
The 46-year-old was hired by former athletic director Alan Haller in November 2023, just a few months after Tucker was fired. Now, new athletic director J Batt has a chance to find a better fit in the ever-changing college coaching carousel. <\/p>\n
![\"Head](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/head-coach-jonathan-smith-michigan-115507779.jpg\")
Head coach Jonathan Smith of Michigan State Spartans walks off the field after a loss against the Penn State Nittany Lions at Spartan Stadium on November 15, 2025 in East Lansing, Michigan. Getty Images<\/p>\n
It will be the Spartans\u2019 third coach since Mark Dantonio retired in 2019.\u00a0Smith\u2019s early exit also makes him the shortest tenured head coach in program history since Harry Kipke\u00a0was only with the Spartans for one season in 1928.<\/p>\n
Before arriving in East Lansing, Smith coached at Oregon State for five seasons, starting in 2018. He improved as time went on, having winning seasons in his final three campaigns that included two bowl games.<\/p>\n
He finished his time on the West Coast with a 34-35 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michigan State is expected to join the list of college football teams looking for a new coach. According…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11590,30697,9,11,10,319],"class_list":["post-56674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-college-football","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}