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East Lansing — At least three different occasions as new Michigan State football coach Pat Fitzgerald put together his staff, Joe Rossi says he came away each time thinking it went really well. Good news, no doubt, for someone who’d just gotten settled in at Michigan State. And besides, his wife Lynsey hates moving.
Rossi is with Michigan State for his third season as defensive coordinator in the aftermath of a busy offseason. A whole lot has changed in the matter of five months. A new head coach, new assistants and a new roster are obvious changes. And yet in an era of renovation, Rossi’s defense is still intact. In fact, it’s been doubled down.
“From the beginning, I was very adamant that I wanted to stay,” Rossi said Tuesday, referencing some opportunities within the conference that he didn’t take up, self-evident by the Spartan emblem still stitched to his shirt. “You can win here. We will win here. We will play great defense here. It’s going to be something that it’s going to be exciting to be a part of.”
Rossi, who turned 47 on Sunday, has spent 25 years coaching defense at various levels. He joined Jonathan Smith’s inaugural 2024 staff after six seasons as the defensive coordinator at Minnesota, where he earned a reputation for developing defenses that could stifle the run game and play greater than the sum of its parts.
And yet, results have been hard to come by. In the 4-8 2025 season, Michigan State allowed 29.9 points per game (104th in Football Bowl Subdivision) off 378.7 yards (72nd) per game, 231.3 of those coming through the air (92nd).
Just browsing through the numbers doesn’t tell the whole story. The Spartans’ defense started off as a glaring weakness in Big Ten play then morphed into the core reason the team hung in some games late in the season. Strong outings at Minnesota and Iowa, even in a clunky win over Maryland, showed progress from early showings like that against Southern Cal and UCLA.
More: What will Michigan State offense look like under Nick Sheridan? Think F.A.S.T.
In the offseason, Michigan State didn’t simply gut its defensive staff and bring in an array of new faces. Rossi stuck around, as did safeties coach James Adams. Assistant linebackers coach Andrew Bindelglass earned a promotion to rush ends coach. Rossi brought in three new faces: co-DC and linebackers coach Max Bullough, defensive line coach Winston “Deebo” DeLattiboudere III and cornerbacks coach Hank Poteat.
Rossi will make $1.7 million each of the next two seasons, the latter added via an extension two days before last season's opener against Western Michigan (Rossi's unit pitched a shutout that game).
If Michigan State switched up its coaching staff, in some respects it isn’t starting over completely with Rossi sticking around. There are lessons to glean from last year — if not from all that in-season growth then for the simple fact that some players, including leaders such as safety Nikai Martinez and linebacker Jordan Hall, are in their third years of the system. There’s a basis of knowledge to work with.
“Coach Rossi staying here was a big portion of that,” Hall said March 17. “I figured that for my last year, I want to be in a system that I know, and I have a lot of trust with Coach Rossi.”
“Just like the scheme and everything of Coach Rossi’s defense,” safety Aveon Grose said. “I feel like Coach Rossi is a super smart coach, and as Coach Rossi says a smarter player is a better player. So we kind of have the same thing going in that case.”
Rossi, at his core, is a teacher. He recruits students of the game. This group is full of them, it appears — so much so that Rossi can cast himself as the “why guy.” He relishes that opportunity.
“Mike Richard when we were recruiting him, he was like, ‘Am I allowed to ask why,’” Rossi recalled of one of his new transfer safeties. “I said, If you don’t, I’m going to be upset with you. Like, I think when people get upset about someone asking the why, it’s because it’s their ego, because they’re not real confident on what the actual ‘why’ is, and they feel like they’re getting questioned.
“I want the guys to understand the why, because if they know the why, they can do their job better.”
This is actually the first time Rossi is working under a coach whose foundations come from defense. Fitzgerald’s background as a linebacker gives him a leg up in Rossi’s area of expertise, though 17 years running Northwestern’s program made him well rounded.
“He’s a head coach, you know?” Rossi said. “Yeah, his background was on defense. Yeah, he’s always going to err on physicality and toughness, and we love all that. But I think he does a really good job of splitting his time between both the offense and the defense.”
One of Fitzgerald’s coaching principles is for his coordinators to roam. Instead of working as a linebackers coach in addition to running the defense like he did under Smith, Rossi gets to delegate that duty and check in with various groups, which he equates to quality control.
“To make sure that all the verbiage and all the language is we’re all on the same page,” Rossi said.
An addition to the coaching staff makes that possible. Michigan State brought back former MSU linebacker and two-year captain Bullough from Notre Dame, where sprouted the youngest branch of a coaching tree that stretches back to his grandfather, Hank, a Duffy Daugherty assistant. Bullough brings a lineage.
“He made it clear he wanted to be here, and we wanted to have him here, and it was awesome to get him here,” Rossi said.
So too, did Rossi, and that’s something that his players have pointed out.
“For me it was no doubt. I mean, I kind of went into break knowing that I was going to come back,” said defensive tackle Ben Roberts, better known around the MSU facilities by his nickname Big Worm. “Coach Rossi has done a great job with me. He’s kept a hundred with me. He’s one of the best defensive coordinators in the country. I mean, who wouldn’t want to play for Coach Rossi? He brings the fire every day, and that’s why we want to play.”
That fire endeared Rossi to a sizable contingent of MSU fans last season, when he went down onto the sideline midway through the season and stayed there to channel energy and passion onto the field — by the way, he’s staying down there this coming season.
Now, that energy is abundant on this staff, almost pre-requisite. Just between Rossi, Fitzgerald and Bullough, there’s a lot of spark to go around. Will that group need a get-back coach?
“I think with that group, we’ll need it,” Rossi said, pointing out safeties coach Adams and defensive line coach DeLattiboudere as other sparkplugs. “We got a juice group now, and that’s by design.”
[email protected]
@ConnorEaregood
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Joe Rossi returns with spark as Michigan State Spartans DC
Continue reading...
Rossi is with Michigan State for his third season as defensive coordinator in the aftermath of a busy offseason. A whole lot has changed in the matter of five months. A new head coach, new assistants and a new roster are obvious changes. And yet in an era of renovation, Rossi’s defense is still intact. In fact, it’s been doubled down.
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“From the beginning, I was very adamant that I wanted to stay,” Rossi said Tuesday, referencing some opportunities within the conference that he didn’t take up, self-evident by the Spartan emblem still stitched to his shirt. “You can win here. We will win here. We will play great defense here. It’s going to be something that it’s going to be exciting to be a part of.”
Rossi, who turned 47 on Sunday, has spent 25 years coaching defense at various levels. He joined Jonathan Smith’s inaugural 2024 staff after six seasons as the defensive coordinator at Minnesota, where he earned a reputation for developing defenses that could stifle the run game and play greater than the sum of its parts.
And yet, results have been hard to come by. In the 4-8 2025 season, Michigan State allowed 29.9 points per game (104th in Football Bowl Subdivision) off 378.7 yards (72nd) per game, 231.3 of those coming through the air (92nd).
Just browsing through the numbers doesn’t tell the whole story. The Spartans’ defense started off as a glaring weakness in Big Ten play then morphed into the core reason the team hung in some games late in the season. Strong outings at Minnesota and Iowa, even in a clunky win over Maryland, showed progress from early showings like that against Southern Cal and UCLA.
More: What will Michigan State offense look like under Nick Sheridan? Think F.A.S.T.
In the offseason, Michigan State didn’t simply gut its defensive staff and bring in an array of new faces. Rossi stuck around, as did safeties coach James Adams. Assistant linebackers coach Andrew Bindelglass earned a promotion to rush ends coach. Rossi brought in three new faces: co-DC and linebackers coach Max Bullough, defensive line coach Winston “Deebo” DeLattiboudere III and cornerbacks coach Hank Poteat.
Rossi will make $1.7 million each of the next two seasons, the latter added via an extension two days before last season's opener against Western Michigan (Rossi's unit pitched a shutout that game).
If Michigan State switched up its coaching staff, in some respects it isn’t starting over completely with Rossi sticking around. There are lessons to glean from last year — if not from all that in-season growth then for the simple fact that some players, including leaders such as safety Nikai Martinez and linebacker Jordan Hall, are in their third years of the system. There’s a basis of knowledge to work with.
“Coach Rossi staying here was a big portion of that,” Hall said March 17. “I figured that for my last year, I want to be in a system that I know, and I have a lot of trust with Coach Rossi.”
“Just like the scheme and everything of Coach Rossi’s defense,” safety Aveon Grose said. “I feel like Coach Rossi is a super smart coach, and as Coach Rossi says a smarter player is a better player. So we kind of have the same thing going in that case.”
Rossi, at his core, is a teacher. He recruits students of the game. This group is full of them, it appears — so much so that Rossi can cast himself as the “why guy.” He relishes that opportunity.
“Mike Richard when we were recruiting him, he was like, ‘Am I allowed to ask why,’” Rossi recalled of one of his new transfer safeties. “I said, If you don’t, I’m going to be upset with you. Like, I think when people get upset about someone asking the why, it’s because it’s their ego, because they’re not real confident on what the actual ‘why’ is, and they feel like they’re getting questioned.
“I want the guys to understand the why, because if they know the why, they can do their job better.”
This is actually the first time Rossi is working under a coach whose foundations come from defense. Fitzgerald’s background as a linebacker gives him a leg up in Rossi’s area of expertise, though 17 years running Northwestern’s program made him well rounded.
“He’s a head coach, you know?” Rossi said. “Yeah, his background was on defense. Yeah, he’s always going to err on physicality and toughness, and we love all that. But I think he does a really good job of splitting his time between both the offense and the defense.”
One of Fitzgerald’s coaching principles is for his coordinators to roam. Instead of working as a linebackers coach in addition to running the defense like he did under Smith, Rossi gets to delegate that duty and check in with various groups, which he equates to quality control.
“To make sure that all the verbiage and all the language is we’re all on the same page,” Rossi said.
An addition to the coaching staff makes that possible. Michigan State brought back former MSU linebacker and two-year captain Bullough from Notre Dame, where sprouted the youngest branch of a coaching tree that stretches back to his grandfather, Hank, a Duffy Daugherty assistant. Bullough brings a lineage.
“He made it clear he wanted to be here, and we wanted to have him here, and it was awesome to get him here,” Rossi said.
So too, did Rossi, and that’s something that his players have pointed out.
“For me it was no doubt. I mean, I kind of went into break knowing that I was going to come back,” said defensive tackle Ben Roberts, better known around the MSU facilities by his nickname Big Worm. “Coach Rossi has done a great job with me. He’s kept a hundred with me. He’s one of the best defensive coordinators in the country. I mean, who wouldn’t want to play for Coach Rossi? He brings the fire every day, and that’s why we want to play.”
That fire endeared Rossi to a sizable contingent of MSU fans last season, when he went down onto the sideline midway through the season and stayed there to channel energy and passion onto the field — by the way, he’s staying down there this coming season.
Now, that energy is abundant on this staff, almost pre-requisite. Just between Rossi, Fitzgerald and Bullough, there’s a lot of spark to go around. Will that group need a get-back coach?
“I think with that group, we’ll need it,” Rossi said, pointing out safeties coach Adams and defensive line coach DeLattiboudere as other sparkplugs. “We got a juice group now, and that’s by design.”
[email protected]
@ConnorEaregood
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Joe Rossi returns with spark as Michigan State Spartans DC
Continue reading...
