How Michigan State’s Pat Fitzgerald worked the portal for roster overhaul

BATTLE CREEK – Speaking in front of hundreds of high school coaches, Pat Fitzgerald asked for audience participation.

Anyone who heard recently from the new Michigan State coach recently about one of their former players was told to raise their hand. Nobody did.

That’s because Fitzgerald and his staff have been dealing with agents while looking for transfers to fill out the roster. Although the portal was established prior to the three season he was out of college coaching, Fitzgerald’s return meant needing to dive in quickly.

“We had a very strategic plan,” Fitzgerald said Thursday night after speaking at the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association’s annual clinic in Battle Creek. “We felt strongly where we needed to really put our focus in quickly and I think we’ve been able to accomplish that. What do we have left to fill? Very little.”

Fitzgerald, who spent 17 seasons at Northwestern, took over the program last month after Jonathan Smith was fired following a 9-15 record in two years. The planned portal departures started before he was hired and continued with the total topping 40. They’re up to 26 known transfer additions spread across all three phases of the game.

“We will build a winning program based on bringing the right guys into the program, so it starts with our evaluation,” Fitzgerald said. “I don’t care where they’re coming from, I don’t care what level they played, I want to see production. Do not show me a young man that we want to think about having come transfer that has not produced. I want to see on-field college production.

“Projection, for me, is in high school, I’ll project high school kids. Or maybe, a chosen freshman or two that in the portal down the road, that will probably be guys that we recruited out of high school that maybe went somewhere else.

“This year is a little different, I hope we never have to do again, but with that, we were able to bring guys that we believe fit what we’re trying to do and have already had production on the collegiate field.”

Michigan State’s departures were heaviest at defensive back (10) and offensive line (11) and those are among the two areas they’ve addressed the most. The Spartans have added four veteran offensive linemen in tackles Ben Murawski (UConn, 6-foot-6, 344 pounds) and Robert Wright (Georgia Southern, 6-4, 295), center Trent Fraley (North Dakota State, 6-1, 303) and guard Nick Sharpe (South Carolina, 6-2, 335).

“We obviously retooled the offensive line,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s pretty obvious what my focus was – we got big and we’re going to continue to recruit big but not sacrificing hopefully athleticism.”

How Michigan State spends its money building a roster will be different than the previous staff based on priorities. Receiver Nick Marsh, who signed with Indiana, is arguably the team’s top transfer loss.

“We could take all the money and go get an A receiver and then 2, 3, 4 and 5 aren’t where we need them to be and I took a different approach, you can see that,” Fitzgerald said. “Same thing on the D line. We could have gone and got one pass rusher, I’ve got three so now I’ve got a wave of pass rushers and maybe there’ll be one more, I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe there’ll be another receiver.”

Fitzgerald said the Spartans will ultimately add about 30 transfers in the offseason and is comfortable with Alessio Milivojevic moving forward as the presumptive starting quarterback. They added well-traveled veteran Cam Fancher from the portal while Milivojevic and linebacker/team captain Jordan Hall helped retain teammates and recruit portal players.

“We really like the group we brought in,” Fitzgerald said. “We really like the people, we really like the families and we have added competitive depth in areas where last year I thought there were holes after watching the tape. That’s how teams get better.”