Heading into his third year as a Spartan, defensive back Dillon Tatum and the rest of the Michigan State program faces a clean slate.

“Our goal is to literally delete everything from the past couple years,” Tatum said after Michigan State’s first spring practice on March 19. “Like you said, pure clean slate. Get rid of all the, just the things that happened that are plain out stupid because we don’t need that energy anymore. New season, basically new team, whole new staff, we got games to win. We got other stuff to focus on.”

There is a new staff in town led by head coach Jonathan Smith. There is also a new defensive coordinator/linebackers coach in Joe Rossi and new position coaches in the defensive back room: Blue Adams (secondary coach) and Demetrice Martin (cornerbacks coach).

That all came after Mel Tucker was fired for cause in September of 2023 and the Spartans' season went spiraling downward as they finished with a record of 4-8.

“I think so, not to the major extent that it probably was,” Tatum said when asked if the change was needed at Michigan State. “I think there were things that needed to be ran different for us to be able to have the best chance to win.”

Now that spring practice is underway and the new regime has had a chance to get settled in for a few months, Tatum is seeing some changes.