Michigan State HC Jonathan Smith not thinking about his future in East Lansing

Michigan State Spartans head coach Jonathan Smith is absolutely in the hot seat in East Lansing. Yes, he's only in his second season with the Spartans, but his team is 3-8 and they're riding an eight-game losing streak.

With a season-closing game against 4-7 Maryland coming up this weekend, this will be the last chance Smith will have to pick up a win before his future will likely be determined.

He's not thinking about his future as head coach at Michigan State right now, though. He sees what's happening around the country, with coaches seemingly getting fired left and right, but all he's worried about is this game against Maryland right now.

"You know, look across the country, and changes and moving. And so, I go back to understanding that, each time you sign up college coaching nowadays, it’s a week-to-week thing, and we got another week to go do it," Smith said, according to Sam Gillenwater of On3. "I’m still really confident in the people that are in the building right now. Obviously, we got to find ways to get things better, and excited about the opportunity to keep doing that.”

If Michigan State can't beat Maryland, the Spartans will finish the second season of the Smith era with an overall record of 8-16. That's not just middling. That's terrible. 

Jonathan Smith has been terrible over two seasons at Michigan State

The Spartans have always had a hard time playing "second fiddle" to the Michigan Wolverines in the state, but they've at least had stints of being relatively competitive. Heck, at the peak of the Mark Dantonio era, they won the Big Ten, the Rose Bowl and even made the College Football Playoff.

That's the type of program Michigan State can be, but Smith hasn't found a way to even begin scratching the Spartans' potential.

He'd be wise to start thinking about what his future looks like outside of East Lansing, but for now, he's saying that he has had no conversations with the powers that be at Michigan State about that.

"Again, you go back to this approach, and you understand the landscape that you’re in, and so that’s why we’re locked in on, you know, tomorrow’s practice and headed towards this game," he said.