Coaches under consideration at MSU: Dickert, Smith, Leipold, Clawson

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We have an update on Michigan State’s coaching search. Over the past 24 hours, Clint Cosgrove, Ryan O'Bleness, and David Harns have been speaking with sources and comparing notes. Here’s what we can confirm as of Nov. 3, 2023.

Michigan State is currently pursuing four candidates for its head football coach opening. To be clear, our sources are not indicating that these are the only candidates Michigan State is looking into for the head coaching vacancy.

Michigan State has its list and is now in the process of trying to secure interviews, a process that did not begin until the middle of this week. From our understanding, we do not believe a formal interview has taken place as of yet.

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the coaching search have confirmed to us that Michigan State is heavily interested in the following four coaches:

- Jake Dickert (Washington State head coach)

- Jonathan Smith (Oregon State head coach)

- Lance Leipold (Kansas head coach)

- Dave Clawson (Wake Forest head coach)

Their representatives have been contacted by Michigan State, according to our sources, and formal interviews are being pursued. While researching and vetting this story, we have learned that Michigan State prefers a sitting head coach that has achieved a certain level of success. Our sources indicate MSU's preference is for an experienced head coach, rather than elevating a coordinator.

Information is slow to come out because Michigan State is purposefully keeping things close to the vest, and because the Spartans are looking to hire a head coach who is currently leading a different program. The coaches under consideration would prefer to not be publicly tied to MSU at this juncture as they have another locker room to maintain. Their people want to keep it as quiet as possible.

While we’re not ruling out coordinators or other coaches (Elko, etc) at this juncture, our sources indicate that it seems more likely that MSU is targeting head coaches who have experience running successful programs.

Dickert, Smith and Leipold have been brought up before – both on this website and elsewhere – but we heard Clawson’s name as a legitimate candidate for the first time today.

Dickert (age 40) and Smith (age 44) make sense as young coaches who would be considered to have a lot of potential with the resources Michigan State can offer. Keep in mind, the Pac-12 Conference is also crumbling, and Washington State and Oregon State are the last remaining schools in the conference, which will obviously lead to lost revenue and more limited resources for those two schools.

Smith is an Oregon State alumnus and all of his coaching stops have been out west, however, and that could keep him in Corvallis. But if there was ever a time to look at young Pac-12 coaches and entice them to make a move to the Midwest, it would be now.

Meanwhile, Dickert has Midwest roots as he is originally from Wisconsin. He also is already experienced in taking over a program amidst turmoil. Dickert was hired as Washington State's defensive coordinator in 2020. In 2021, then-head coach Nick Rolovich (and several assistants) were fired for failing to comply with COVID-19 vaccination mandates. Dickert was made the interim head coach in October of 2021, named the permanent head coach in November of that year, and has been at the helm ever since.

Clawson (age 56) and Leipold (age 59) may be older than what some fans are hoping for, but both have proven their ability to turn struggling programs around. Clawson has had a winning record at his last three head coaching stops: Richmond, Bowling Green and Wake Forest.

Leipold has turned around the programs at both of his recent stops. He went 37-33 in the six seasons at Buffalo. Prior to that, the Bulls had a combined record of 27-45. Meanwhile Leipold had led Kansas to back-to-back six-win seasons (and counting in 2023), and the last time the Jayhawks won six games in a season before that was in 2008 (eight wins). Before Buffalo, Leipold had a ridiculous record of 109-6 at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater.

What would these coaches be able to do with Michigan State's resources in the Big Ten?

Here is quick recap of overall records and 2023 records for the four coaches mentioned:

- Lance Leipold: 160-58 overall, 14-19 at Kansas and 6-2 in 2023 (coming off of a win versus Oklahoma)

- Dave Clawson: 153-138 overall, 63-58 at Wake Forest and 4-5 in 2023 (coming off of a loss versus Duke)

- Jonathan Smith: 32-33 overall (all at Oregon State), 6-2 in 2023 (coming off of a loss versus Arizona)

- Jake Dickert: 14-13 overall (all at Washington State), 4-4 in 2023 (coming off of a loss versus Arizona State)

As for Urban Meyer, sources continue to tell Spartans Illustrated that it is very unlikely to happen. We have also now heard from sources very close to Meyer’s camp that he is not interested in the job. We will not completely rule it out as of now, but the chances Urban Meyer becomes Michigan State’s next head coach remain incredibly low.

To reiterate, this does not necessarily mean that Michigan State is down to these four candidates or that one of them will ultimately be hired as MSU’s head coach. It is always possible that other names can emerge later, but these candidates appear to be near the top of Michigan State’s list as of now.

We’ll continue to report on what this means and what this looks like moving forward. Obviously, a lot can still change, and now that the calendar has changed to November, activity will likely continue to increase.

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