When he revealed he’d had his eye on Michigan State for “a long time,” it seemed like he’d abandoned his team before he ever left. When his team-issued stuff turned up at Goodwill days after he left, it appeared that he couldn’t get out of town fast enough. Jonathan Smith’s abrupt and callous departure from Oregon State in November left a lasting impression that he lacked sympathy.
“I didn’t give a s—?” Smith said, cutting me off.
Well, yeah. Exactly.
We spoke Wednesday afternoon in the tunnel leading to the field at Lucas Oil Stadium, site of the Big Ten’s football media extravaganza. Smith had a flight waiting to take him back to East Lansing, his new home. The Spartans open fall camp on Tuesday. Games are a month out.
The Oregon State stuff might all be water under the bridge at this point, except for the fact that the Beavers and their fans have never gotten closure on Smith’s unceremonious exit. It has left a campus legend as certifiably persona non grata.
On Wednesday, Smith finally said some of the things he should have said before he left.
“It was painful to leave,” Smith told me. “Painful.”
Yes, it was painful.
“But at the same time,” Smith said. “I’m competitive. I wasn’t trying to just get out of Dodge. When you looked at Michigan State, it fit.”
He saw a program with a blue-collar identity and a chip on its shoulder, qualities he recognized and related to, both as a coach and from his days as an OSU quarterback who captained the Beavers to their greatest season.
“I felt like this was a really good fit to compete at this level,” Smith said. “Call it what it is, security of the conference thing. I had to make a tough, tough call.”
How about the truckload of stuff at Goodwill? That was an annual dropoff, Smith said. Steve McCoy, the Beavers’ equipment manager, passes out so much gear that he had no choice.
“Every year I go to Goodwill,” Smith said. “I still have Oregon State gear. Now the timing, the emotions. Was that ideal? No. I regret the timing of that.”
But at a time when every small indignity for Oregon State felt like an all-out attack, watching a campus legend abandon ship in the time of need was almost too much to bear. And then, with a new locker room to win over, alums to impress and boosters to woo, Smith, in his unique staccato style, spent his time preaching why Michigan State was now the right place for him and never explained why Oregon State no longer was.
“I did take the mindset that once I got going,” Smith said, “I was gone.”
He stumbled a bit as he thought about what he wanted to say next. “Call it …”
“I wish I would have …”
Finally, he admitted, “I didn’t anticipate as much pushback. I anticipated some, but not as much. And I could have maybe handled it better.”
Another reporter asked me on Wednesday if what Smith did was really so much worse than any other big-time college football coach who changes jobs. It’s a good question. My answer is that what he did wasn’t necessarily worse. In fact, his methods of departure were probably less objectionable than scores of other examples across college football over the years.
It’s that the circumstances around him were so much more dire.
That’s not Smith’s responsibility.
Oregon State in that moment did not need a football coach, it needed a savior.
The expectations of fans and alumni are not a weight he should have to carry alone. Save for this: He is one of them. He should have known what it meant for him to leave. And he could have done more to cushion that blow.
