Interim head coach Morris Watts has 42 years of coaching experience - not one of them as a head coach, though.
He’ll get three games as the Spartans’ football season winds down. But these aren’t the conditions he would’ve liked to be at the helm of a football team.
A season with sky-high hopes has come crumbling down into green and white bits.
Junior quarterback Jeff Smoker - one of the players closest to Watts - was suspended indefinitely Oct. 24 and will miss his third consecutive game Saturday.
Senior tailback Dawan Moss, a co-captain, was dismissed from the team after being arrested by Lansing police.
And finally, athletics director Ron Mason fired Bobby Williams on Monday after practice. Watts passed on following former head coach Nick Saban to LSU and backed Williams as his successor.
Mason selected Watts, the coach on staff with the most experience, to temporarily fill the void. Watts admits replacing Williams is tough because of their close relationship.
“I’ve been an assistant coach for 42 years,” he said. “And one of the things that I’ve cherished being proud of is that I’ve been loyal to the person I’ve worked for and the institution that I’ve worked for.”
At the end of the season, Watts along with the rest of the coaching staff will be relieved of duty, making the relationship with the players more difficult.
“He’s kind of operating under difficult circumstances right now,” said former MSU quarterback Bill Burke, who played under Watts. “He’s a seasoned guy and he’s been around for a while so he’s as good a guy as any to have at the helm right now.”
Watts said he’s going to try to get the players to play at a level that they haven’t played in the last four games. He said the coaching staff has to find a way to motivate the players in the last three weeks.
“The challenge to win at this level is your great players have to play great every Saturday,” he said. “And your good players have to play very good. They just can’t play good. Everybody has to play a level above what they are. And we have not done a good job of that.”
Motivating the team is an unenviable challenge considering most of the players liked Williams. Under Williams, players on the team said a few of their teammates were not giving it their all on the field. The Spartans have been in a free fall, dropping their last four games in embarrassing fashion. The latest loss, a 49-3 thumping at the hands of intrastate rival Michigan.
Freshman tailback David Richard said Watts has been more involved on the practice field this week, since becoming the interim head coach.
“He’s been more active than he has all year,” he said. “He wants to bring the best out of us. He’s going to lead us in the right direction.
“He’s a good motivator.”
Watts will still be in charge of calling the plays, but for the final three games, he’ll be strategizing from the sideline. The 64-year-old said it won’t be a new experience because he’s done it before when he worked for former MSU head coach George Perles.
“I was like a fish out of water that particular time because I had not done it before,” he said. “Since then I have done it a few times. It’ll be something I have to adjust to. But I think it’s the place for me to be.
“I want to try to be a help in the enthusiasm part and getting involved with these young men as they come off the field and see if we can get an emotional level going that can help us survive.”
Even if the Spartans were to win, Watts said he doesn’t deserve all the credit. He said the players still have fight within them, it just needs to be rekindled.
“It’s more of a credit to Coach Williams if we choose to go to Indiana and put up a fight. They don’t learn that overnight.”
Every coach is in football to one day become the head man, but Watts has never been called for a job he wanted.
“I’ve had offers,” he said. “Never had the offer of the magnitude of a Big Ten school. I’ve had offers at smaller schools. They were Division I-AA schools through the years. But didn’t feel like I wanted to go that direction
