Michigan State football’s first season under head coach Jonathan Smith was an adjustment period for the program. The Spartans faced the need to rebuild after a disappointing end to the Mel Tucker era, and entered Smith’s debut season at the helm following back-to-back campaigns where they failed to make the postseason – an anomaly for a program that has been among the most competitive in the Big Ten in recent decades. Smith discussed the program’s development entering his second season at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday, noting that he felt as if his team had “learned a lot.”
Michigan State Football Players Hope Attention To Detail Will Breed Success originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Michigan State football’s first season under head coach Jonathan Smith was an adjustment period for the program. The Spartans faced the need to rebuild after a disappointing end to the Mel Tucker era, and entered Smith’s debut season at the helm following back-to-back campaigns where they failed to make the postseason – an anomaly for a program that has been among the most competitive in the Big Ten in recent decades.
Smith discussed the program’s development entering his second season at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday, noting that he felt as if his team had “learned a lot.” It turns out that, according to a trio of Michigan State players also present for the event, that a lot of the learning process came down to simply paying more attention to detail and fully buying into Smith’s messaging.
“We didn’t pay a lot of attention to the details in the playbook and our coach’s vision, but, you know, this year I think we’re taking a bigger step as an offense and as a defense to pay attention to those small details to make plays be perfect,” Michigan State wideout Nick Marsh said.
“Coming in with [Michigan State DC] Coach [Joe] Rossi, he’s very detail-oriented in how he wants things to go, and that’s something that is kind of hard to adjust to when you’re learning things. You try to take little pieces and learn each practice and each week,” said linebacker Jordan Hall.
According to the players, learning to focus more on the smaller facets of the game that are often easy to overlook – having faith that it will eventually pay off – did not come as an easy process. It’s a journey that started last fall, and still isn’t fully complete yet for the Spartans. But as the team has had more time to adopt an approach focused on those smaller details, they have seen an improvement on the gridiron manifest itself before their eyes.
“We just had the staff come in and we had to really pick up the playbook, and we saw a little bit of struggle with that. Just coming into this year and seeing it click a little more in spring ball is a really cool thing to see,” offensive lineman Stanton Ramil said.
“Things build up, especially when things are so new. So it’s definitely something we worked on throughout the course of the season, but the way spring ball and fall camp are coming around, that’s something we think is one of our strong suits as a defense – that we’re detail-oriented,” Hall added.
As the players discussed their adjustments to playing under Smith, it was clear that they seem to have developed a bit more confidence as a team in their ability to be a competitive force in the Big Ten Conference. And all it took was a little attention to detail.
“I think it’s the details that are going to make us different this year,” Marsh said.
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jul 25, 2025, where it first appeared.
Category: General Sports
