Michigan State head coach Pat Fitzgerald told reporters Monday that he challenged his players and his coaches to practice better this week, ahead of Saturday’s home game against the Eastern Michigan Eagles (3:30 p.m. ET, BTN).
“I challenged the team today; there were some guys that probably wanted to play, and I want them to play, too,” Fitzgerald said. “You need to be a superstar in your role, and the way you get on the field is meritocracy. You need to practice better. Practice is really important here. It’s not something that we just kind of go out and do.”
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If players want to see the field this season, it starts at practice. Fitzgerald won’t allow players to take practices easy or go through drills at half speed. Effort needs to be there at all times for Fitzgerald to trust a player to give that same effort on game day.
“I just think there’s really good football players and really well-coached teams,” Fitzgerald said. “It doesn’t matter what the name is on your jersey or what conference you play in. And with the mobility of talent throughout the college football landscape, there’s really good players now more spread out than ever.”
Just like last week, Fitzgerald doesn’t see Eastern Michigan as an “easy” opponent just because the Eagles come from the MAC. Week 1 backed him up. The Spartans needed four quarters to put away Toledo in a 30-20 opener, Michigan survived Western Michigan 13-12 on a touchdown thrown as time expired, and UMass walked into Piscataway as a 28.5-point underdog and beat Rutgers 37-21. In the transfer-portal era, mid-major rosters carry more former Power Four players than ever. Eastern Michigan has four former Spartans on its roster, including starting quarterback Noah Kim, guard Cole Dellinger and cornerback Caleb Coley.
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“I think Noah’s a heck of an athlete. He’s got an ability to make all the throws. It shows up on tape,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s got that ability to extend the play and then make you pay if you’re not sound in your run fits in their zone-read stuff and the different nuances that they have in their run game.”
Kim is the first of three former Spartan starting quarterbacks Michigan State is slated to face this season, with Katin Houser (Illinois) and Aidan Chiles (Northwestern) both due in East Lansing in October. Kim hasn’t played a snap in East Lansing since before Jonathan Smith‘s tenure — his last Michigan State season was 2023 — but he knows what Spartan Stadium feels like on a Saturday.
“I don’t think we played hard enough in special teams. I don’t think we played physical enough in special teams. I don’t think we executed the details in our special teams units,” Fitzgerald said. “So we’ve got a lot of improvement opportunities there, and those are a lot of guys that that’s their role. So that was probably what I was most disappointed in the game after watching it.”
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The kicking game was the one area Fitzgerald singled out. He felt the Spartans missed small details that turned into missed opportunities, and he said the fix runs through getting more players involved in those units. Elsewhere, he praised the team for powering through the heat and humidity, with players coming back from cramps and in-game injuries to finish the night. That, he said, is the toughness a team needs to win.
“This game is played by tough people. You have to be a tough guy to play this game and play it the right way,” Fitzgerald said.
