Note: Article originally published Dec. 16, 2023.

After the completion of the Mel Tucker tenure, I posited that Michigan State needed a complete clearing of house, and an injection of new, outside coordinators with fresh ideas and clean track records. The first glowing success, in my opinion, was the hiring of young up-and-comer head coach Jonathan Smith.

The second was, this past weekend, the poaching of defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Joe Rossi from Minnesota. Rossi is a 44-year-old defensive coach, elevating from defensive line coach to defensive coordinator for the Golden Gophers in 2019. He also had prior experience as a defensive coordinator at Rutgers in 2014 and 2015.

As has been detailed elsewhere, Rossi immediately made Minnesota a top-10 defense in 2019, and a top-10 defense again in 2021, leading to his nomination for the Broyles Award, given to the top assistant coach in the nation, which I felt he had a much better argument to win than the eventual winner that year (Michigan's Josh Gattis).

Rossi emphasizes physicality and multiple fronts, as well as mixed coverages. I suspect both will be welcoming to MSU fans.

I wasn't kidding when I said on Matt Sheehan's "Locked On Spartans" podcast that the hiring of Smith was going to be a boon for MSU, but made my job substantially harder. Gone are the days when about four coverages were played from one front and three different alignments. Rossi will deploy a bevy of mobile fronts, split field coverages and disguised pressures.

Rossi's defense is a nominal 3-4, which functions as a 4-3 with a hybrid-shaped player acting as a stand-up end on most snaps. One of the first things you'll notice about Rossi's defense is the dizzying array of fronts he can bring on standard and nonstandard downs.

Above, this is a fairly typical representation of what the standup 4-3 looks like. Notice the SAM (strong-side) linebacker walked up to shade inside the No. 2 wide receiver to the boundary, and the four-man secondary walked back from the condensed formation.

This alignment above is a 4-3 even, where each defensive tackle is more or less lined up on the guards.

In a 4-3 under, the three-technique, or defensive tackle on the outside shoulder of the guard, is away from the strength of the formation, the tight end.

In a 4-3 over, the three-technique aligns to the strong side, the side with a tight end.

Another version of the 4-3 over is seen above.

Rossi will also run a 4-2-5 nickel, and can vary fronts out of that as well. Something that becomes extremely clear watching Rossi's clinics is that he is comfortable asking his linebackers to absorb coverage responsibilities. While that will result in some matchup issues, it allows Rossi to vary a lot of coverages from fairly traditional formations.

Rossi also deploys a three-down lineman look from time to time, with two standup ends.

He can also go to a bear front on short yardage, where his emphasis on physicality becomes clear: