Michigan State Spartans 2026 Season Preview

A Fresh Start in East Lansing

Pat Fitzgerald inherits a program that finished 4-8 and 1-8 in Big Ten play, numbers that belong to the previous staff, not to him. His first roster in 2026 is a clean slate, and the overall power ranking near the 65 mark suggests a team with enough pieces to be competitive week to week rather than a rebuild from scratch. The real story this year is installation, how quickly Fitzgerald's systems replace last season's conference results, not what happened before he arrived.

A Punter as Placeholder QB1

The starkest sign of how bare this offense is entering 2026 sits at quarterback, where the only returning player with any 2025 stat line at the position is Alessio Milivojevic, a punter with three punts and a 36-yard average, projected as the starter by default rather than production. That fact alone explains an offense that ranked 110th in third down rate and 125th in sacks allowed a year ago, numbers a first-time starter under center will not fix on his own. Pat Fitzgerald takes over a group that finished 99th in total yards with essentially no proven passing or rushing answer already in the building, meaning 2026 is about whoever wins snaps behind Milivojevic on the depth chart, not building on what returns.

Michigan State's quarterback room has no name recognition from last season worth keeping, since Aidan Chiles is gone and neither Peyton Babbitt nor Leo Hannan has thrown a college pass. That vacuum makes Alessio Milivojevic the front-runner heading into Pat Fitzgerald's first camp, but the job is not his outright, with UCF transfer Cam Fancher and four-star East Kentwood signee Kayd Coffman both in the mix. Whoever wins it inherits an offense that ranked 125th in sacks allowed and 110th on third downs, so the bigger fix may be the five in front of him, not the arm behind them.

Pat Fitzgerald inherits a backfield that lost its top two producers in Elijah Tau-Tolliver and Makhi Frazier, but the cupboard is not bare: Marvis Parrish (576 yards) and Brandon Tullis (4 TD) both return to anchor a run game that finished 110th in rushing yards per game. Iowa transfer Jaziun Patterson arrives with 296 rushing yards of his own experience, giving Fitzgerald a proven complement rather than an unproven flier, while UConn's Cam Edwards adds a pass-catching option out of the backfield. The talent is there to rotate bodies, but until Michigan State's line stops allowing the kind of pressure that contributed to 37 sacks allowed, no combination of Parrish, Tullis and Patterson fixes an offense stuck near the bottom third of the country in yards per play.

Nick Marsh and Chrishon McCray are gone, taking their combined production out the door with them, so Jameel Gardner Jr. (32 catches, 445 yards, 2 TD) becomes the clear top target by default in Pat Fitzgerald's first year running things. The portal answer is KK Smith, who arrives from Notre Dame with modest numbers of his own (8 catches, 123 yards, 2 TD), while Fredrick Moore comes over from Michigan with just 1 tackle to his name, hardly a receiving résumé. This is a rebuild-on-the-fly group, leaning on unproven names like Colin Charles, Braylon Collier and Nick Hardy plus a four-star high school addition in Samson Gash, and it has to answer for an offense that ranked 99th in total yards per game a year ago.

Michigan State loses its entire tight end production in one offseason, with Jack Velling (36 catches, 359 yards, 3 TD) and Michael Masunas (19 catches, 232 yards, 3 TD) both gone from a passing game that already ranked 70th nationally. Nobody left behind carries any real receiving resume, Kai Rios and Jayden Savoury combined for two catches last year, so the answer arrives from outside: four-star signee Joey Caudill headlines the incoming class, joined by Eddie Whiting and transfer Carson Gulker from Ferris State. Pat Fitzgerald inherits a room that needs its newcomers to produce immediately, not develop on the side, if this offense is going to move off its 99th-ranked yardage total from a year ago.

Michigan State allowed 37 sacks and managed just 123 rushing yards per game in 2025, a line that let both the run game and Pat Fitzgerald's new offense stall behind it. Fitzgerald and his staff rebuilt from the ground up, with 15 linemen departing against just seven returning, including senior Conner Moore and Luka Vincic. The fixes came from two directions: high-three-star tackle prospects Collin Campbell and Eli Bickel headline the recruiting haul, while Ben Murawski arrives via the transfer portal from UConn to compete immediately along the edge.

Michigan State gutted its front five, losing Alex VanSumeren, Jalen Thompson and Quindarius Dunnigan off a line that produced just 56 tackles for loss (113th) and 13.5% havoc (110th) a year ago, and Pat Fitzgerald is rebuilding almost entirely with modest three-star additions. Isaac Smith returns with 25 tackles but only 1 sack, and none of the incoming names, Eli Coenen from Illinois or Keahnist Thompson from Weber State, arrive with resumes suggesting immediate juice off the edge. With 22 sacks and a run-stuff rate of 16.8% (104th) as the baseline, this group projects to be a patchwork unit still finding its pass rush rather than fixing one.

Jordan Hall's 88 tackles and 4.5 TFL are the one proven piece in a linebacker room Pat Fitzgerald is otherwise rebuilding from scratch through the portal. Kenny Soares Jr. (80 tackles at NC State) and Dion Crawford (79 tackles, 3.5 sacks at Buffalo) arrive as ready-made replacements for departed thumpers Darius Snow and Aisea Moa, while DiMari Malone and DeJae White carry no track record into a defense that ranked 113th in tackles for loss and 110th in havoc rate a year ago. If Soares and Crawford play to their transfer production alongside Hall, this group upgrades on paper even if the raw numbers around them stayed ugly in 2025.

Michigan State's leading tackler in this secondary, Malcolm Bell, is gone, along with Armorion Smith and Aydan West, gutting a group that already ranked 93rd in passing yards allowed. Pat Fitzgerald leans on the portal to patch it, bringing in Tre Bell from Iowa State (36 tackles, 4 TFL) and Charles Brantley from Miami to start immediately at corner, while Nikai Martinez (24 tackles) is the lone returning starter with real snaps. With five new faces replacing nearly all of last year's production, this defense stays a work in progress until the transfers prove they can tackle in space at Big Ten speed.

Michigan State rebuilds its kicking operation almost entirely through the portal after Martin Connington, who left having gone 12 of 16 with a long of 50, is no longer on the roster. Iowa transfer Rhys Dakin, who averaged 43.6 yards on 42 punts, steps in as the new punter, while Charlotte transfer Liam Boyd, who made 9 of 12 field goals with a 42-yard long, arrives to handle placekicking duties. With Blake Sislo also gone, none of last year's specialists return, so Pat Fitzgerald's staff is banking on proven transfer production rather than internal continuity to stabilize the unit in year one.

Nearly Everyone New

Pat Fitzgerald inherits a roster that lost both leading wideouts in Nick Marsh (662 yards) and Omari Kelly (626 yards) plus both backs in Makhi Frazier and Elijah Tau-Tolliver, and answered with 28 portal arrivals rather than proven skill talent, headlined by Iowa transfer Jaziun Patterson at running back and Notre Dame's KK Smith at receiver. Alessio Milivojevic, who threw for punts rather than passes a year ago, is projected to run the offense, while the defense leans on transfer linebackers Kenny Soares Jr. and Dion Crawford to replace Wayne Matthews III's 73 tackles. With a 45th-ranked recruiting class layered on top of that turnover, 2026 reads as a full reconstruction rather than a continuation of the 4-8 season that preceded it.

Jordan Hall's Defense

Michigan State's season swings on whether Jordan Hall, coming off 88 tackles and 4.5 TFL, can anchor a front that gets real help from NC State transfer Kenny Soares Jr., who brings 80 tackles and 4 TFL of his own experience into the mix. Pat Fitzgerald inherits a 1-8 conference team with a new quarterback picture, so the fastest path to competitive games in Year 1 runs through a linebacker corps that can force stops early while Alessio Milivojevic and the offense find its footing. If Hall and Soares hold up against Big Ten rushing attacks, Michigan State stays in games it lost a year ago.

Home Favorite, Road Dog

Michigan State's 4-8 record hides a split personality bettors chased hard last year. As a home favorite the Spartans went 0-4 against the spread, but as road underdogs they covered all five, and against ranked teams they covered three times without winning a single one of those games outright. That pattern is exactly the résumé of a 1-8 conference team, close enough to keep bookmakers honest but not to actually win, and Pat Fitzgerald's first season is about whether new pieces turn those backdoor covers into upsets rather than more decorated losses.