Pat Fitzgerald is back in the Big Ten as head coach of the Michigan State Spartans after signing a five-year contract on Monday, according to multiple reports.
Fitzgerald, 50, will be formally introduced at a Tuesday press conference in East Lansing and is the third coach of the Spartans in just over two years’ time.
The Jonathan Smith era ended when he was fired Sunday after eight losses in the final nine games of the season, capping a two-year stint with the program at 4-15 because of the NCAA vacating five wins from 2024. He has more than $30 million remaining on his contract.
Fitzgerald last coached in 2022 for Northwestern. The Wildcats went 110-101 across his 17 seasons while recording a few double-digit-win campaigns and claiming a handful of bowl victories.
Fitzgerald finished his last two seasons with the program a combined 4-20 and was fired in July 2023 due to a hazing scandal that the school said included “forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature.”
But the two sides reached a financial settlement in August that Fitzgerald said cleared his name. Terms were not disclosed but Fitzgerald’s attorneys called it a “satisfactory settlement.”
Fitzgerald sued Northwestern for $130 million in October 2023 claiming his employment was “unlawfully terminated” and that Northwestern damaged his reputation.
“For the past two years, I have engaged in a process of extensive fact and expert discovery, which showed what I have known and said all along — that I had no knowledge of hazing ever occurring in the Northwestern football program and that I never directed or encouraged hazing in any way,” Fitzgerald said in a statement in August.
Fitzgerald’s son, Ryan, is a walk-on quarterback at Iowa.
Smith took over the program in November 2023 after Mel Tucker’s firing two months prior amid sexual harassment allegations following several NCAA violations.
Michigan State began the 2025 season 3-0 but lost to then-1-4 UCLA, then-3-6 Penn State and rival Michigan in the midst of eight consecutive defeats.
The NCAA vacated all five of Michigan State’s wins from his debut 2024 season, as well as nine more wins from the 2022 and 2023 campaigns, due to recruiting violations during the Tucker era.
When Smith was named Michigan State coach in 2023, he was coming off a 25-13 run over three seasons with Oregon State, where he went 34-35 overall.
