EAST LANSING — Joe Rossi came down from on high to channel his inner Pat Narduzzi.
The defensive coordinator last week brought with him the type of fire and passion that Michigan State football fans have desperately ached for and demanded. And when his defense pinned Michigan on a high snap late in the first half, Rossi raced onto the field, pumping his fist and slapping hands as the Spartans came to the sideline.
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“He’s crazy. He’s crazy,” defensive tackle Jalen Satchell said Wednesday, Oct. 29. “But that’s what we need. When you play defense, you gotta be a little crazy.”
Michigan State’s defensive coordinator Joe Rossi watches during warmups before the football game against Western Michigan on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in East Lansing.
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While Jonathan Smith’s stoic demeanor – some have called it placid – has drawn the ire of supporters accustomed to the amped-up attitude of Narduzzi, Mark Dantonio, Nick Saban and other MSU coaches over the decades, the second-year head coach approaches his job with a quarterback’s calm. That can be, sometimes, to the detriment of the teens and 20-somethings in a highly emotional time of life while playing a highly emotional game.
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Which makes the yin and yang dichotomy of Rossi moving from the coaching box to the field level in the Spartans’ 31-20 loss to U-M an interesting dynamic moving forward as he and Smith try to salvage a season gone awry and, quite likely, their own jobs in green and white.
Because MSU – mired in a five-game losing streak, with its bowl aspirations barely registering a pulse – needs any adrenaline shock it can get right now.
“That was kind of the hope of him coming down to the sideline,” Smith said Monday. “Joe does a great job with the whole unit in regards to communication, direction. … That was kind of the logic with having him downstairs. I did think it was more about not just the play with the defense on the field, but the adjustments, the communication there in between series. And we liked how that went.”
Smith said Rossi will remain on the field this week at a familiar place – albeit on the opposite sideline than he’s used to – as the Spartans visit Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday (3:30 p.m., Big Ten Network). MSU (3-5, 0-5) faces Rossi’s old boss P.J. Fleck and Minnesota (5-3, 3-2) still searching for their first Big Ten win.
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Smith poached Rossi, the Gophers’ defensive coordinator from 2019-23, after he was hired in November 2023. While Smith, a Los Angeles native, spent his entire playing and coaching career west of the Mississippi, Rossi is Rust Belt to the core.
A Pittsburgh native and alumnus of the football-factory program at Central Catholic High – which produced Dan Marino, Damar Hamlin, former MSU assistant coach Sal Sunseri and others – Rossi cut his teeth as a linebacker-turned-defensive lineman at Division III Allegheny College before embarking on a coaching journey that went from small Thiel College to FCS-level Maine to Rutgers, on Greg Schiano’s staff from 2012-15. He joined Fleck’s staff at Minnesota in 2017, and the former Western Michigan coach elevated him to interim defensive coordinator in 2018 before handing him the reins the following year.
Michigan State defensive coordinator Joe Rossi, right, talks with offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren during the Spring Showcase on Saturday, April 20, 2024, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing.
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“They play exceptionally hard,” Fleck told reporters this week about MSU’s defense. “Coach Rossi did a tremendous amount for this program and the University of Minnesota, and I have a lot of respect for him and what he’s done. … When you watch his defense – and it looks like our defense, the way they play, how hard they play – they are really deep up front defensively, tackle really well at linebacker. They got some really good corners, they love to press coverage. They believe in their guys on the perimeter, and the back end, and he mixes it up a lot.
“And that’s Joe Rossi defense – keep you guessing, keep things in front, and he does a really good job at the simple things.”
It hasn’t been easy this season, with MSU playing inconsistently in all facets and breaking down across every position group weekly during the losing streak. The Spartans have allowed 380.1 yards (84th in FBS) and 32.5 points a game (116th), allowing 230.8 yards through the air (87th) with one of the nation’s worst pass efficiency ratings (125th).
Though MSU ranks 76th against the run (149.4 yards allowed), three of its five Big Ten opponents have topped 200 yards on the ground. That included 276 yards by U-M, with 189 coming in the second half.
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But the best way for MSU to end its losing streak and beat a Minnesota team struggling on offense is for Rossi to again summon up every ounce of mojo to resemble some of the legendary coaches who have come before him running the Spartans’ defense.
“When he’s on the field, he brings us all together and you see the fire in his eyes,” Satchell said. “And once we see that, then that just turns us up at the end of the day.”
Narduzzi, now the head coach of Rossi’s hometown Pitt Panthers and a cross-border native of nearby Youngstown, Ohio, was legendary for that passion and smoldering intensity. He also famously would begin games in the coaching box and work his way to the field to deliver a jolt to crank up some of MSU’s best defenses under Dantonio, himself a former defensive coordinator. Saban also was MSU’s defensive coordinator under George Perles before returning as head coach.
That lineage sets a high bar for any coaches who follow in either role. Whether the sideline shift is enough of a short-term boost for Rossi and Smith to continue to chase those ghosts remains to be seen. But another ghastly performance or two and not making a bowl game likely would spell the end of their chances to do so.
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Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State football looking for energy boost with Joe Rossi move
