Spring Football Notes: Michigan State HC Jonathan Smith still feels good about keeping practice 15 under wraps

EAST LANSING, Mich. - With 14 of the allotted 15 spring practice sessions in the book, Michigan State head coach Jonathan Smith feels good about his decision to cancel the previously annual public spring scrimmage in order to get more work done with conventional methods.  The Spartans will do some scrimmaging, about 50 snaps worth, on Saturday at Spartan Stadium. That’s about half of the usual number of snaps for a closed scrimmage, and about 30 percent more than the 35 or so snaps we’ve seen in the 2024 and 2023 spring scrimmages. “We will finish it up on Saturday with a little bit of scrimmaging, a little bit of practicing,” Smith said. “We're going to get some work done. We will kind of turn it into family day, a bunch of families coming back, watching a little bit, and then breaking bread after practice and mingling with them. It’s a great for us, finishing as a program. “We really feel good about the work we’ve gotten done over the last five weeks. Guys stayed into it, continued to work.” Smith acknowledged that part of the reason for canceling a public spring game is to reduce the vulnerability to portal poaching. But a lot of the reasoning was to get 15 full practices in the tank. "Some of the logic was how you're going to use the week leading into the spring game, and the work we've gotten done today and Tuesday is a little bit different because we're not having a big old (spring) game like that,” Smith said on Thursday. “So yeah, I like what we've gotten done in these 14 days. Feel really targeted about what we'll do on Saturday, along with having the families around. Feel good about it." Some areas of continued emphasis as spring draws to a close include the need to finish drives with touchdowns. (MORE INSIDE)