New MSU DC Joe Rossi: Analysis & Background

Justin Thind (247Sports) details Jonathan Smith and MSU's hiring of Minnesota defensive coordinator Joe Rossi, his schemes, how the hiring came together, other candidates, and more background info on Michigan State's new DC.

[liam]

People don’t realize how good of a hire this is. Dude almost had 3 consecutive years with a top-ten defense at Minnesota for shits sake.

[youngstacksbasegod]

It might not even have take year if they hit the portal for good coverage linebacker and if the dline can generate pressure I like our young guys they have potential to be very good in the front 7 and secondary

[Lfg]

Smith=nice hire. Have followed JS's career, first in 2000 and then, again, from 2015 till now. Coach Smith: Too underrated.

[Lfg]

In Smith, Rossi has a hc whose off. is > Minny's (yr over yr). Eventually, at EL, Smith-designed offenses will feed into better-looking metrics for Sparty's d'.

[scott]

I have always considered Minnesota a “sleeping giant” of a program, as they have won FOUR national championships based on the AP poll (which really puts them in rare company). Granted, that level of success was in the far distant past, but still it seemed the potential might still be there. On paper, I might have thought this is a lateral move. Minnesota is getting the same TV money, and so this tells me that MSU must be doing something else special to lure him away. Unless he had some beef with Fleck? Anyway, it seems like a very good pickup for MSU.

[opinioned]

Zion Young would flourish in this system.

[Siberia-Spartan]

I actually like the hire, at the very least it provides us a chance to be competitive again, their team was far better defensively than offensively and they have been in games the last couple of years.

[FatPandaFrank]

Nice explanation of the hire, I appreciate it!

[opinioned]

Interesting that there wasn't more discussion about Mike Tressel.

[jimb-]

is Aidan Chiles coming to MSU or did i get my hopes up to soon?

[brianschultz]

If Joe Rossi can deliver a Top 30 Defense consistently at MSU, I will be ecstatic with the hire. In 2023 at MN, he had the #71 scoring Defense and #127 in Opponent 3rd down conversion rate which is NOT good enough. I am very curious to know why MN was so bad on Defense in 2023.

[comenplaysfc]

Personally i don’t like or hate the hire. Just gonna wait it out and see how it goes before i judge

[markklein]

I think Windmon would flourish in his system off the edge. Hopefully he removes his name from the portal.

[stevebrown]

This guy always has swiss cheese defences

[richardlaub]

I guess if you can't beat them, you pry their coach away with more money.

[BradleyHammond-yiqp]

Should have saved the money and just named HB the DC.