Tom Izzo defends the new Michigan State logo

Of all the days, this would be the dumbest time to talk about it, except I’m so disappointed with our group of alums that are complaining about it that it’s a great time to talk about it for two minutes, Izzo said when asked for his thoughts on the change. It’s a lot bigger than the team; it’s a lot bigger than the program. It’s about our athletic department and our university, which is way bigger than one game or one season. I have been mystified out of my mind over it. Not to make it bigger than it is, but to me, it’s a small deal.

I don’t know about you, but I’m hearing about all this tradition on our logos and all that, but since I’ve been here, we had the Spartan head … remember that one with the grizzly look? Izzo said. Then we had a helmet, and then with every football coach, we had an S and a helmet and an S and a helmet. … I think we didn’t have an identity. Now, here we have a guy who has enough courage and a good enough relationship with Nike that they made us one of four five schools that they researched all the way back to Greece to figure out what would be great. I’m dead serious on this. [Athletic Director] Mark [Hollis] did a phenomenal job.