Jonathan Smith shares his confidence level of being back at Michigan State in 2026

One of the last coaches on the hot seat who we haven’t heard anything about regarding his future is Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith. He, though, isn’t hearing anything anyway, as his focus on the field with the Spartans.

Asked about his future in East Lansing during his press conference on Monday, Smith said he realizes what a lot of this is, especially with how many college coaches have already been moved on from this season. But, until a decision like that is made, what he’s going to do is continue to coach, while knowing there’s little advantage for them right now as far as doing their jobs in not knowing if they’ll be back.

“Yeah, I think, you know, in this landscape of college football, what it is, you know, that’s always a solid question,” said Smith. “You know, look across the country, and changes and moving. And so, I go back to understanding that, each time you sign up college coaching nowadays, it’s a week-to-week thing, and we got another week to go do it. I’m still really confident in the people that are in the building right now. Obviously, we got to find ways to get things better, and excited about the opportunity to keep doing that.

“No,” Smith said, on if anything had been communicated to him about his future. “Again, you go back to this approach, and you understand the landscape that you’re in, and so that’s why we’re locked in on, you know, tomorrow’s practice and headed towards this game. And, yeah, on the recruiting side, we’ve been working on that for a year, right, on our recruiting class and relationship-building. And then you, you know, forecast in the next couple of months how much rosters are fluid, right, and the opportunity that is January for us.”

Michigan State is 3-8 (.273) overall this season, including being one of two winless teams in the Big Ten at 0-8. The Spartans have not won in two months since sweeping their non-conference games to start, and, with a loss to Maryland on Saturday, MSU could go winless in league play for the second time ever in school history.

With that, Smith is 8-15 (.348), including 3-14 versus the Big Ten, since taking over last season in 2024. His records so far are no better than the final two seasons of the prior tenure that he replaced, and a loss this weekend to the Terrapins could give the program its worst finish overall since 2016.

Smith understood the questions being asked, and spoke out to a fanbase that’s clearly frustrated with where things are still with the Spartans. He said all they can continue to do now is keep on, and that’s what they’ll do with one final week left in their season – and, maybe even his time as head coach there.

“You know, I think, what we ask our players, and I go back to a mantra of keeping the main thing the main thing, and what we can control this week is our preparation,” said Smith. “So, starting with us as coaches, preparation, always digging deeper, finding the best positions to put these guys in, coming up with plans schematically that give us the best chance. Think about the energy asked for our players between Tuesday through Friday, getting ready, asking the same thing of coaches. You know, we use it to model in the way, and it starts with myself to the staff of modeling this consistent approach with optimism through the week.

“Eight straight is a tough road. There’s no other way to say it. It is tough, and that doesn’t mean – what’s the alternative, right? You just quit? You run? You can starting blaming others? It’s like, no. Keeping the main thing this week. We’ve been going at it and deeply believing in these guys, and we want it for them to come out on the right side of the scoreboard, and that’s the approach this week.”