Chicago — Football season is here. Well, sort of.
Coaches, players and executives from 18 Big Ten programs assemble this week at the Chicago Hilton to introduce the 2026 season at Big Ten Media Days. The event runs Tuesday through Thursday.
Head coach Pat Fitzgerald will represent Michigan State during Wednesday’s media sessions alongside quarterback Alessio Milivojevic, linebacker Jordan Hall and safety Nikai Martinez. The Spartans open the season Sept. 4 against Toledo at Spartan Stadium.
Pat Fitzgerald returns to Chicago with another Big Ten program
To see Pat Fitzgerald wearing Michigan State gear will take some getting used to for the Big Ten at large. For years, Chicago’s native son was synonymous with Northwestern football, making the most of a program outmatched in recruiting and revenues.
Three years after his messy departure — one involving a hazing scandal, a surprise firing, then a wrongful termination lawsuit settled out of court — Fitzgerald says he feels vindicated by the final outcome. It won’t change the amount of attention he will be paid during this week’s homecoming.
This may be the first opportunity Fitzgerald has had to come home. He never really left. Fitzgerald has been in the Chicago area since 2001, when he joined his alma mater as a position coach five years after he graduated with a fearsome reputation as a linebacker. Before that, Fitzgerald grew up in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park. He became Northwestern’s head coach in 2006 after the death of predecessor Randy Walker. Even after his firing, he stayed local and coached his sons at Loyola Academy in the suburbs.
In 17 seasons at Northwestern, Fitzgerald went 110-101. Those wins rank second among active coaches in the Big Ten and 14th all time. He led the Wildcats to 10 bowls and an AP poll high of No. 10 in 2020. And a crescendo that was — in his final two seasons of 2021 and 2022, Northwestern went a combined 4-20.
Until his firing — even after it — Fitzgerald was the face of Northwestern football. Now, he’s the face of Michigan State’s hoped-for regenesis after four seasons of losing football, two coaching changes and a scandal of its own.
Fitzgerald faces a steep climb for Michigan State, which turned over nearly half its roster and the majority of its starters in the wake of a 4-8 season in Year 2 under former coach Jonathan Smith. Betting lines set Michigan State’s win total at 3½, and USA Today’s preseason poll ranked the Spartans 17th among 18 Big Ten teams — only Purdue ranked lower, a team that hasn’t won a Big Ten game since 2023.
Still, Fitzgerald won’t set the bar any lower than aiming at winning a Big Ten championship, even if it’s going to take some time. He’s got his work cut out for him, but returning to Chicago should be a reminder that he has plenty of personal motivation to surprise some people.
Through two coaching changes, Jordan Hall still there for Spartans
A year ago in Las Vegas, Jordan Hall spoke at Big Ten Media Days as Michigan State embarked on the second year under Smith aiming to progress. Instead, a step back ushered his second coach out the door, and brought in Fitzgerald as his third.
Yet Hall is still with Michigan State, and he’s still one of its representatives at media days Chicago.
When this past season went off the rails following Michigan State’s homecoming loss to UCLA, again and again Hall sat behind a microphone — injured and ailing — urging teammates to keep fighting and fans to keep believing. When he announced his decision to come back for his senior year, it felt like the biggest retention of the offseason for defensive coordinator Joe Rossi. Hall backed that up in spring ball.
Hall’s importance to the defense is hard to overstate. The green dot linebacker’s 88 tackles led the team. If stats measured heart, he probably would’ve led Michigan State there, too.
Under a former linebacker in Fitzgerald and with MSU All-American linebacker Max Bullough coaching his position, Hall will continue to be at the center of the defense.
“(Fitzgerald’s) outlook on the vision that he saw for the program is something I believed in and something I’ve been working towards my three years here,” Hall said back in March. “I figured my best option would be to stay here and try to put those things into fruition.”
It’s also evident he will be at the center of leadership for his team, both as an elder statesman and an impact player.
Life getting harder for Big Ten’s middle class, including Michigan State
What made Indiana’s dominant national championship run so exciting is the fact that for the better part of their history, the football program was a Big Ten afterthought. Yet as much as the feel-good Hoosiers proved that anything is possible, moving on up to the penthouse ain’t exactly easy for other programs to replicate.
As college football becomes as much about dollar signs as nickel defense, high profile teams such as Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Southern Cal continue to corner the market for talent in the Big Ten. Those schools, plus Indiana, led USAToday’s preseason Big Ten poll.
The Big Ten prides itself on producing three straight national champions. Commissioner Tony Petitti spoke right next to those trophies as he opened Tuesday’s media day. One of the issues he addressed: the charge by Nick Saban last week that a conference’s quality also depends on its top to bottom talent. Purdue, we’re all looking at you.
When it comes to the figurative “middle class” of the Big Ten — where Michigan State finds itself, and a big reason why the hubbub around fundraising arm Spartan Ventures is so meaningful — competing with that upper echelon of spenders isn’t so easy as it was when the money side of athletics was at least kept hush-hush. It isn’t feasible to expect programs to match the brewing arms race of college football recruiting, especially when results don’t get a good return.
When asked by The Detroit News, Petitti said that two factors can help give the middle of the pack a better chance: limiting roster spending and expanding the College Football Playoff.
“It’s coming up with a system that allows the entities to be as close as possible to compete,” Petitti said. “You know, the current system doesn’t really do that. There’s no way you can actually stop spending in this system because you’re not required to. And so if we can get to a place that’ll do that, I think by definition if it slows down, it’ll bring more schools closer together.
“Do I think we can erase the entire gap? No, I don’t. I don’t think that’s possible, but we can probably come up with a system that puts it in a place where it’s a little bit closer, and then see where you go. But I also think that access is really important because … there can be certain places that still can spend more, but if you expand the playoff, you give opportunities across where your roster is. Like you can actually have a roster that maybe has less investment in it, but for some reason, shot the lights out and got into the postseason.”
cearegood@detroitnews.com
@ConnorEaregood
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Three Michigan State football story lines entering Big Ten Media Days
Reporting by Connor Earegood, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Connor Earegood, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
