Eric Schultz

1. Get this clown off my campus
2. A real coach with this exact same roster is sitting at 6-5 right now

Could it begin to hurt MSU that they're waiting to fire Smith? Franklin's already off the table and I gotta believe more are soon to follow. Do you think Batt is working behind the scenes right now to secure the next coach for as soon as he axes smith?

I saw something that said MSU's "payroll" for basketball was $3.5 million. I remember Graham saying it was $3 million two years ago, so I woulda thought it was significantly more now. Does 3.5 sound right based on what you know?

1. MSU seems to possess the qualities of a classic Izzo squad. Impressive win
2. It's puzzling to me how, a year after 3-point shooting was the biggest weakness, we'd roll into this season with so few proven shooters
3. So nice not having a football game

You suggested that Teng would've transferred if MSU brought in a Big Ten caliber starting 2 guard. Yet two years ago when Kohler and Cooper were sophomores, you argued msu should've brought in a big because it wouldn't have been seen as "recruiting over" them. Why would this have been different?

1. Missed 90% of the game at a Halloween party. 5 years ago the idea of that would've been outrageous. That's the Jonathan Smith effect
2. Going from quitting onfield vs UCLA to "Same Old Spartans" isn't the argument to keep Smith that some fans are acting like it is
3. Ridiculous officiating in OT

Is MSU's NIL the worst in the big ten? Is it bottom 3? If the answer to both of those is no, can we please stop with this "Smith was set up to fail" nonsense? He might've not been set up to succeed to the level we want. And that's not his fault. But spare me. There HAS to be enough $ to not be this

Has graham ever had a worse take than his "Haller will get an ovation at a basketball game in a decade" point from Monday? Holy God, Graham. The guy followed up the worst contract in the history of the sport with the worst MSU hire since Muddy Waters. His legacy isn't complex; he was horrific

Graham rightly talks about how smith's issue isnt 38-13 to Indiana, but rather 41-14 vs Rutgers, 38-13 vs ucla, etc. But when Tucker was losing 34-7 to Minnesota and 39-31 to Indiana with 1 completed pass in the 2nd half, you were all "we can't judge him til 2025". Why the different tone with Smith?

3. The longer it takes to pull the trigger, the less serious we look about football. The less serious we look, the harder it'll be to get a coach who has any real options this offseason. They're better on the field without him. The optics are better without him. Get this clown off of my campus

2. Because of that, this is just as much on J Batt. If he'd fired this guy two weeks ago like he should've, State is in better shape in that game. Strike one, J

1. Smith looks like a guy who knows he's done so he's entered "F it" mode. Going for 2, not kicking a fg to cut it to one score; it's like a kid playing madden. MSU had a real chance to win that game with an interim

You say you think winning this game isn't enough for Smith to keep his job. How sure of that are you? Would you wager a chest tattoo on it?

Even if winning isn't enough for Smith to keep his job, is losing this game in the best interest for the program in the long run?

Bonus: the amount of "maybe we should keep Smith" takes are scary. Being not horrific at your job isnt reason to celebrate; it's the BARE EFFING MINIMUM! Before this, 7 of his last 8 games were MASSIVE RED FLAGS! He was fine for ONE WEEK! This has been a disaster. It's not going to end well. Move on

3. I wish Graham was my boss. I could be objectively horrific at every aspect of my job for almost two years, put in a week of decent work when it looked like I was gonna get canned, and Graham would give me 6 more weeks

1. See? THATs what it looks like when you just lack the players. Not 41-14 vs Rutgers. Not 38-13 vs UCLA. Not 24-17 vs Purdue. Not 34-7 vs Minnesota (Tucker). Youve told me for 4 F-ing years its just a matter of talent. Saturday showed the repeated abominations over the last 4 years were coaching

2. I totally agree, Graham. You gotta think about not hurting the feelings of 28 players. Forget telling your 60,000 season-ticket holders, 63,000 donors, and 550,000 living alumni that you're not serious about football. No siree. It's those 28 who gotta be considered

Is the best-case plausible scenario the following: msu gets killed vs Indiana, Michigan loses, and msu fires Smith to try to get the interim coach bump against a Michigan program that suddenly has some pressure on them?

Can we stop with this "smith woulda been fine in a different era" nonsense? Of course the nature of the era didn't help him. But he's been terrible. Awful. At everything. It's been an abject disaster. In this era, in the last era, in every era. This was simply a bad fit

Graham admonished my pessimism a few weeks ago. I gotta know: were you just playing devils advocate all the times you were all "it might go badly but it might not"? Or did you not see what most of us clearly saw; that this thing going poorly was by far the most likely scenario?

Clearly I read carefully 🤦‍♂️

1. There is no path forward. This isn't going to end well.
2. If you care about the school and the overall health of the program, you should root for msu to lose every game until this guy is officially gone
3. I never thought I'd see the day Graham uses the phrase "not acceptable" in a column

Graham repeated the phrase "5 games in and this was a bad week" several times on the last show, as if this was the first real sign of trouble this year. You realize the entire BC game, the scoreless 2nd half vs WMU, and 24 pts allowed vs Youngstown are all MASSIVE red flags also, correct?

What have you seen thru 17 games that suggests this is going to end up going well for Smith? I got about 20 things that suggest it won't. Can you give me one real, concrete, bona-fide thing that suggests this is going in the right direction?

1. That was as critical a column as I've ever seen from Couch.
2. MSU has a better chance of going 3-9 than they do 7-5
3. If the billionaires and Jim Heos feel like they're gonna have a seat at the table with picking the next coach, Batt'll have no problem raising $30m to send Smith packing

I counted 24 coaches who have finished the regular season in the top 12 twice or more in the past decade. Of those 24, none of them had two losing seasons to start their respective tenures. If msu once again misses a bowl, it won't be "too early to know" about whether Smith is the guy here

Mark Dantonio won 9 games in year 2 with Brandon Long and Trevor Anderson starting at DE (remember them?) and a QB who threw 9tds and 9 picks. Their record against bowl-teams was 5-3. Tell me again why what we're seeing is simply a case of not having the horses and has nothing to do with coaching?

Does MSU need more talent to legitimately contend? Of course. Do competent coaching staffs have several lower-tier MAC-level position groups year in and year out? No. Why is that so hard to comprehend, Graham?

2. Quarterback, tight end, and wideout are the only positions that are undeniably better this year vs last year. Every defensive position group is noticeably worse