That was quick! The brand and image rehabilation for Pat Fitzgerald worked, and it took effect very quickly. Northwestern fired him in disgrace, due to a hazing scandal, in the summer of 2023. And now, here in the fall of 2025, he’s already got a new job, within the conference no less!
NU’s Big Ten rival, Michigan State, is hiring Fitzgerald as their new head football coach.
BREAKING: Michigan State is hiring former Northwestern HC Pat Fitzgerald as their next Head Coach, per @freep.
Coach Fitz made the Big Ten title game in 2018 and 2020 and boasted a 5-5 bowl record at Northwestern 🟢⚪️ pic.twitter.com/IgOxsmlBgz
— College Football Report (@CFBReport) November 30, 2025
Michigan St. sacked Jonathan Smith, after just two seasons, earlier today. Smith, a curious hire from the beginning, went just 9-15 overall, and a dreadful 1-8 in the league this season. Michigan State football in 2024 and 2025 was just as unique, memorable and interesting as their head coach’s name- Jonathan Smith.
The program was truly going nowhere.
And Smith was a kind of a panic hire, as MSU was in a very rough spot at the time, still reeling from the Mel Tucker disaster.
State had given Tucker (the unudisputed king of the “blue collar, hard hat,” “lunch pail” cliche routine) a lucrative extension, not long before his sexual harassment scandal broke.
So hiring Fitz, given the scandal baggage, is kind of strange for a program that is not at all far removed from a major scandal themselves.
Also, it will be interesting to see if Fitz still has his fastball as a coach given how his Northwestern career ended with a 1-11 season (2022), which came on the heels of a 3-9 season (2021).
Still, he led the Wildcats to a Big Ten West championship in both 2020 and 2018.
En route becoming the all-time winningest coach in Northwestern history, he had three 10 win seasons, and five campaigns of 9+ wins.
He went 110-101 overall in Evanston, including 5-5 in bowl games.
Prior to the 2013 Gator Bowl (after the 2012 season)
It had been speculated upon that Pat Fitzgerald was waiting in the wings for when Kirk Ferentz finally retires at Iowa, but that isn’t happening any time soon.
Fitz had spent a lot of time with the Hawkeyes program, given that his son plays there.
Overall, Pat Fitzgerald to Michigan State is a high risk/high reward kind of hire.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN.