“Who is the adult in charge?”

[bumper music, clipped too early] 100.9 The Mitt. Lansing sports, all day, every day.

No. No, I am not doing the calm version of this show today. I am not. You can send the emails, you can say I am being unfair, you can say I have not watched his quarterback video. I do not care. Michigan State hired a 28-year-old YouTube scouting guy and handed him the football program. The whole thing. The keys. The wallet. The garage code. Everything.

You are already at a ten.

Because the school is at a twelve! Marcus, this is Michigan State. This is not some directional school trying to get on SportsCenter. This is a Big Ten program that has been in the playoff era, that has won Rose Bowls, that has had real teams and real players and real history. And the answer after the last decade is, what, let’s see if the internet guy can fix it?

That is the radio version. The more generous version is they hired someone they think can evaluate, build a roster, and modernize the operation.

Oh, modernize. There it is. That word should come with a warning label. Every time an athletic department does something insane, they call it modern.

You are playing to the cheap seats.

It is a radio show! That is the job!

Fair.

Let me ask the question that normal people are asking. Who is the adult in charge?

Nick Sheridan and Joe Rossi are adult assistants. There are veteran people in the building.

No, no. Assistants are not the same thing. If the kid wants to call offense and shape the defense and run recruiting and the portal and NIL and staff meetings and the whole front office, then the kid is the adult in charge. And I am allowed to ask why.

You are allowed to ask why. I am saying there is an answer, even if you hate it.

I do hate it. Continue.

The answer is that Michigan State thinks the sport is moving toward personnel-first programs. They think the roster has been mis-evaluated, mis-built, and poorly explained to recruits. They think a traditional safe hire would come in, say toughness twelve times, win five games, and we would be back here in three years.

I would enjoy five games right now!

No you would not.

I would enjoy a normal-looking press conference. I would enjoy not being a national punchline before lunch. I would enjoy Michigan fans not texting me screenshots of trombone jokes.

The trombone jokes are rough.

ROUGH? My brother-in-law sent me a picture of a headset taped to a music stand. This is my life now.

Look, I get the embarrassment. I do. But I also talked to two people today who knew his scouting work, and neither of them laughed. That matters a little.

It matters if you are hiring a director of scouting.

Maybe. Or maybe the sport is changing and everyone is a little too comfortable pretending the same coaching tree is the only path.

Do not give me the “sport is changing” speech like I am yelling at clouds. I know the sport is changing. I know the portal matters. I know NIL matters. I know evaluation matters. That does not mean you hand the wheel to a guy who has never driven on the highway.

That is a better argument.

Thank you. I occasionally have one.

Here is where I think this gets interesting. They are not asking him to be a mascot. This is not “let’s put the smart young guy on stage and keep the old guard behind the curtain.” He clearly won the room with a detailed plan. People around the search are saying he had a full evaluation of the roster, the staff, the portal needs, the recruiting board, the NIL priorities.

Fantastic. Put it in a binder. Binders do not block Ohio State.

Nobody said they do.

Urban Meyer just did the thing Urban does, which is be mean and annoying and probably hit the nerve. He said you do not learn a Power Four locker room by posting evaluations online. I hate agreeing with him, but I am not going to pretend that is wrong.

Urban is also protecting the old path because the old path made Urban Meyer.

Urban Meyer won national titles. Nick Mansour has not beaten Eastern Michigan yet.

He has not played Eastern Michigan yet.

Exactly! And I am already sweating Eastern Michigan! That is where this hire has taken me emotionally.

Let me try to talk you into one football part.

You have sixty seconds before I start reading listener texts.

Cam Edwards is a real player. The linebacker room is better than people nationally realize. Jordan Hall is steady. Dejae White and Pretzlaff can run. Tre Bell in the slot actually makes sense if you want a bigger nickel who can blitz and fit the run. Jayden Savoury as a young mismatch tight end is exactly the kind of early staff evaluation that could make people say, OK, they saw that before we did.

Good. Great. I like all of those players. I am pro-player. Do not make this into me attacking the roster.

I am not.

But the interior offensive line is middling, the schedule gets real in three weeks, and we are apparently starting a redshirt freshman quarterback because the ceiling fairy came by during camp.

That is not quite the explanation.

That is exactly how the fan base is going to hear it. Milivojevic stabilized the offense last year. People saw that. They remember it. You can tell them Hannan has more tools, and some people will nod. But a lot of fans are going to say the older kid earned it.

And Mansour has to handle that carefully. He cannot talk like Milivojevic was just the safe, boring option. He has to respect what he did.

That part I will give him credit for if he does it. If he protects players publicly, good. That is how it should be. Do not throw college kids into the street because you want to sound tough.

That has been one of his clearest rules so far.

Rules are free in August.

Also true.

Text line is disgusting right now. Here is Greg in Holt: “Dave, I watched one of his videos and now I think we are winning nine games.” Greg, seek help. Here is Denise in DeWitt: “This is the final insult from this university.” Denise, I understand. Here is someone simply writing, “the band has taken the palace.” That one is art.

The palace was already on fire, to be fair.

That is the only thing keeping me from completely losing my mind. The normal way was not exactly working. Mel Tucker cratered the thing. Jonathan Smith did not fix it. The university itself has been a mess. The board, the leadership changes, the trust issues, all of it. So yes, maybe the safe hire was not as safe as everyone pretends.

That is the door I am trying to open.

Do not get comfortable. The door is open a crack. Maybe a mouse can fit through it. Not a person.

Progress.

Here is my final thought before the break. If this works, I will eat every word. I will sit in this chair and say I was wrong. But I am not going to act like skepticism is some moral failure. Michigan State hired a man with no college head coaching track record, no coordinator track record at this level, no Power Four recruiting track record, and gave him an absurd amount of control. That is not a normal gamble. That is the school pushing all its chips into the middle while the dealer is still explaining the rules.

And yet, you are going to watch every snap.

Of course I am going to watch every snap. That is the disease. Back after this.