Jonathan Smith ignoring outside noise at Michigan State, but he should be worried

Michigan State Spartans head coach Jonathan Smith has to feel like he still has time to build his program and turn things around in East Lansing.

With that said, things are certainly looking bleak after a 3-3 start to the season, which includes a 0-3 mark against Big Ten teams.

MSU beat Western Michigan, Boston College and Youngstown State to start the season, which is all fine and dandy, but Smith's Spartans are currently riding a three-game losing streak with losses to No. 25 USC, Nebraska and UCLA in succession.

Smith is now 8-10 as head coach of Michigan State, and this current stretch of losses has the fanbase grumbling So much so, that he was asked about it in a recent news conference.

“Not to take a shot at you guys at all. I don’t follow a ton of it. I’ll be honest," Smith told the media (h/t On3). "I definitely have a greater awareness that things are out there, whether they’re talking me particularly or things around the program.”

Jonathan Smith has not lived up to expectations at Michigan State

Smith may not be paying attention to the noise surrounding his mediocre if not bad start at Michigan State, but he should be feeling the pressure.

The Michigan Wolverines get all the press in the state, but MSU has high expectations going back to the apex of the Mark Dantonio era. Mel Tucker seemed like he had things rolling, but his time in East Lansing ended in disaster, so Smith was supposed to be the coach who could put things back together for the Spartans.

Perhaps a lot of that hope was based on his 10-3 season at Oregon State in 2022, but it's worth noting that Smith was 34-35 overall with the Beavers, so it's not as if he was setting the world on fire out west.

Up next for the Spartans is the No. 3 Indiana Hoosiers, fresh off a program-defining win over Oregon on the road, so things could get really ugly.

As far as Smith is concerned, tough, he sees it all as a process. He's trying to build Michigan State back, and that takes time.

“We do take some deep pride in our approach and how we’re going about it. We want to be at a place [with] great energy, passion, compete at the highest level. Part of that, you want to do that, comes with the other side of things when it doesn’t go right. So, it’s not a big, big surprise to me. I’ll go back to the confidence and really steadfast,” Smith said. “And the people in that building that we’ve got that we can right the ship here.”