- Michigan State is a 9.5-point favorite over Toledo for Friday’s opener.
- Both programs debut first-year coaches, Pat Fitzgerald at Michigan State and Mike Jacobs at Toledo.
- Michigan State lost 37 players to the transfer portal after a 5-7 season and replaced them with 32 newcomers.
- Toledo was picked third in the preseason Mid-American Conference coaches poll after landing the league’s top-ranked transfer class.
EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State is a 9.5-point favorite over Toledo for Friday’s 8 p.m. season opener at Spartan Stadium, a single-digit number for a Big Ten team hosting a Mid-American Conference opponent.
Two First-Year Staffs Set The Number
Fitzgerald takes over at Michigan State after last coaching at Northwestern in 2022, inheriting a program that hasn’t posted a winning record or reached a bowl since 2021. The Spartans went 5-7 in 2025, and the offseason turnover matches that record, with 37 players lost to the transfer portal, replaced by 32 newcomers, 12 of them projected starters, under 11 new coaching hires. Redshirt sophomore Alessio Milivojevic returns at quarterback after a disappointing end to 2025.
Toledo’s turnover cuts the other way. Mike Jacobs went 94-23 across stops at Mercer, Lenoir-Rhyne and Notre Dame College, including two straight Southern Conference titles at Mercer, and inherits a roster that MAC coaches picked third in the preseason poll.
Toledo also added the Mid-American Conference’s No. 1-ranked transfer class, a detail tracked with the rest of the legal college football betting board, so the Rockets are absorbing a new staff on top of a veteran base rather than rebuilding both at once. Quarterback John Alan Richter has completed 66 percent of his career passes for 699 yards, seven touchdowns and one interception.
That gap in how each roster reset is what keeps the legal sports betting spread inside single digits, since a Big Ten favorite replacing this much of its two-deep is priced closer to a MAC team that returned more than it lost.
| Market | Michigan State | Toledo |
|---|---|---|
| Spread | -9.5 (-110) | +9.5 (-110) |
| Moneyline | -400 | +300 |
| Total | 46.5 (Over -110) | 46.5 (Under -110) |
A Series With Almost No History
The two schools meet for only the second time ever this Friday; the first game came in 1925, a 58-0 Michigan State win. With no recent series and two rosters that turned over behind new coaching staffs, the number is built almost entirely on this year’s personnel rather than on how these programs have played each other before.
