The J Batt Guessing Game will drag on into Sunday morning
Michigan State’s first-year athletic director did not make himself available for comment on the status of football coach Jonathan Smith after the Spartans’ 38-28 victory over Maryland on Saturday, Nov. 29. A school spokesman said Batt would not talk as he was walking down the hallway past the MSU locker room deep inside Ford Field after Smith’s postgame press conference.
Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith after defeating Maryland at Ford Field in Detroit on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025.Asked if he knows if he will or won’t be back for the 2026 season, Smith responded: “Don’t have that.”
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSmith said he and Batt, who was hired in June, “have continued to conversate through the week. I’m sure we’ll be talking again in the coming days.”
The 46-year-old Smith finished 4-8 this season and 1-7 in Big Ten play after going 5-7 with a 3-6 league mark a year ago in his debut. However, the school accepted NCAA punishment for violations that happened under Mel Tucker that included vacating MSU’s 2024 victories. The NCAA in January 2025 determined that Smith and his staff used an undisclosed player who was ruled retroactively ineligible for accepting impermissible benefits under Tucker and his staff.
Smith signed a seven-year, $52.85 million deal after he was officially hired by then-athletic director Alan Haller on Nov. 25, 2023. Batt replaced Haller, who was fired in May.
Smith was asked if he felt it was “fair” to get to the end of the season and not know if he and his staff will return.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I don’t know what’s fair,” Smith said. “I think that you evaluate a complete year as you look at things. And so in this day and age, the guys continued to go, and we came out on top tonight.”
If the school plans to fire Smith, he would be owed more than $33.5 million to buy him out of the final five years and two months of his contract. Smith’s contract has a clause that cut a buyout he would be required to pay to leave for another job in half if Haller was terminated (which he was in May).
MSU also remains locked in a wrongful termination lawsuit with Tucker for roughly $75 million he was owed at the time of his firing in 2023. That case remains ongoing. The NCAA hit Tucker and two of his former staff members with show-cause notifications along with MSU’s infractions that occurred between 2022-23.
As MSU was blowing a 17-point lead in the fourth quarter Saturday, fans – particularly in a shirtless area of the student section – began chanting “Fire Smith!” from the upper deck before the Spartans recovered and finished off Maryland.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSmith left his alma mater Oregon State for the MSU job two years ago this week.
“The main thing is going to work and all that,” he said. “It’s still a deep respect, locked in on the group around. And so we’re doing this together. I credit the staff and the professionalism as they’ve approached things. And the leadership – the game of football is such a team game, the group of them staying together, fighting together and coming up short. And we came out on top tonight.”
Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith against Maryland during the first half at Ford Field in Detroit on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025.Saturday’s win prevented MSU from going winless in the Big Ten for the first time since Duffy Daugherty was 0-5-1 in the league in 1958. The Spartans have never lost every game since joining the Big Ten in 1953.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Let’s face it – 0-fer in the league versus 1? There’s a difference,” Smith said.
Asked about hearing the MSU fight song at the end of a victory for the first time since Sept. 13 against Youngstown State, with Saturday’s win ending an eight-game losing streak that equaled the second-longest in school history, Smith smiled and laughed.
“Oh, it’s great,” he said. “And really, especially, I go back to these players. It was great, because we practice that thing weekly on Fridays, preparing to be able to sing it on Saturdays.”
Whether it was his swan song with the Spartans is now is Batt’s call to decide – and comment.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementContact Chris Solari: [email protected]. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football keeps Jonathan Smith in limbo despite win
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