Michigan State didn’t get scooped regarding the announcement of their new football head coach, Jonathan Smith. And that’s a very unusual occurrence. It isn’t very often that a university is able to announce it’s own news – especially when it’s news of this magnitude – on its timeline and using its own platform.

But that’s what happened here as, shortly before 1pm on Saturday, November 25, 2023, Michigan State posted a press release on its own website and served notice to the college football world that Oregon State’s Jonathan Smith was the new football coach in East Lansing.

These days, nearly every high-profile coaching search ends with someone getting the scoop and announcing the hire on their website or on social media – but it didn’t happen here. Sure, there was a lot of smoke over the last few days and those in the know knew at the beginning of the week that Smith had emerged as the top candidate. But no one – Spartans Illustrated included – had sources that could confirm it was a done deal and report it as such.

Let’s take a journey together as we attempt to piece together and explain how this search went down, how it ended up the way it did, and how Alan Haller and his team kept this information private until they announced it on their terms.

It was Sunday afternoon in Lansing, on the west side of town, at the Capital Region International Airport (LAN), two days after MSU’s football season ended, and one day after the Smith announcement was made. The snow was falling, and it was chilly out.

The conditions were similar to 3.5 years ago when MSU reporters (and internet sleuths) were trying to figure out who MSU Athletic Director Bill Beekman was going to hire to replace the recently retired Mark Dantonio. While the weather conditions were similar, it appears that Alan Haller had a better plan than Beekman did to ward off those who were trying to figure out where he was going and what he was doing.

It was about 2:45pm on Sunday when Alan Haller walked into the Avflight waiting room where MSU staff had already set up shop. The private jet with Smith inside was somewhere over Wisconsin and was expected to land around 3:10pm. The cheer squad was already there with their large MSU flag, pompons, and megaphones. The cheerleaders had learned their lesson in April when new women’s basketball coach Robyn Fralick’s plane was early, and they had to scramble to get there on time.

The few dozen cheerleaders were already there when the first of three reporters who had figured out that this flight was happening showed up around 2:30pm.

MSU Communications staff and MSU Athletic Department deputy directors showed up shortly thereafter. This was going to be their first opportunity to meet the new football coach and his family.

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