Give him a fair chance.
People who are calling for head coach John L. Smith to be fired need to slow down. The coach has only been here three years, hardly enough time to fairly evaluate his performance.
On Friday, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon and Athletics Director Ron Mason expressed their support for the recently embattled coach.
He deserves at least one more season. College sports are different than their professional counterparts. College football is about recruiting players and building a consistent program. That requires commitment to a coach and to a system.
Smith inherited a team that was a mess. The 2002 season was marked by poor play and off-field problems. Leading the program out of that mess was only the first step in building up the MSU football program.
Mason, who was one of the premier coaches in college hockey before becoming athletics director, should know something about building a winning program.
"I look at it as baby steps. When you turn a program around, the steps you take initially, they're baby steps," Mason said Friday. "They're little steps that aren't noticed — behind the scenes, in many cases."
It's good his superiors expressed their support of Smith and laid out expectations for the program. That said, Smith has to work to live up to those expectations, which include going to bowl games and contending for championships.
The team clearly needs to continue improving to meet these goals. It is doubtful Smith's expectations for himself and the program are any lower.
Discipline also needs to be a key issue for the team, one that needs to be improved upon. The legal and discipline problems during the past summer were well documented. These players represent the university and should be held to high standards.
However, these goals can't be done by waving a magic wand.
Fans need to be patient and give Smith a chance to fully implement his philosophy both on the field and in the type of players he recruits.
It's no coincidence many of the cries for Smith's job came in the wake of Steve Mariucci's firing from the Detroit Lions. Mariucci certainly looks like an ideal candidate at first glance. After all, he was born in Michigan and is close friends with MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo.
But the fact is, MSU has a football coach, and he needs to be given the full opportunity to succeed.
