Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith learned from 3 legends

If you’ve been in the business long enough, at some point you’ll undoubtedly learn from great coaches.

Michigan State coach Jonathan Smith was fortunate to have at least three of them in his playing and coaching careers.

Smith coached under Chris Petersen at Washington and Boise State. As quarterback at Oregon State, Smith played under Mike Riley and Dennis Erickson — Riley in his first season with the program and Erickson in his last three.

“I could talk about all three of those guys,” Smith said Wednesday at Big Ten Football Media Days. “I think Mike Riley is authentic. Sometimes guys get the title of head coach, they’ve been doing it for a while, but he’s never really changed his personality type.

“Strategy, learned a lot from Coach Riley as far as his role as offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator in his career. That was my early learning curve on the game, I learned a lot from that.

Erickson succeeded Riley at Oregon State and coached Smith for most of his collegiate career. The two-time national champion was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2019.

“Dennis Erickson, ultimate competitor,” Smith said. “This guy was competitive. No slowing down, no backing down from this guy. Evaluator of talent. He could spot talent quickly. And had long conversations with him as a young coach about how he did that, about spotting talent.

Smith coached under Peterson during his years as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Washington and as quarterbacks coach at Boise State. Together, Smith and Peterson led the Huskies to the 2016 College Football Playoff.

“Chris Petersen, on the coaching side, has been with him the longest by far,” Smith said. “He was very informative. You talk about organization, vision, setting a direction, alignment, creating alignment within a program, an organization, a master of that.

“Creativity, offensive background, but creativity on the offensive side. Then I always kept pushing to find ways to improve, never stay the same. That’s what I learned from Coach Pete.”

If Smith were to turn the Spartans’ program around like he did in Corvallis, he too could go down in history as a legendary coach.

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