Western Michigan athletics director Dan Bartholomae is finalizing a deal to become the new AD at Michigan State, according to a report from ESPN's Pete Thamel on Monday.
Bartholomae steps in after a topsy-turvy summer in East Lansing. AD J Batt left for Kentucky in June after barely a year on the job. Weeks before that, president Kevin Guskiewicz announced he would be taking the same job at Clemson after becoming MSU's 22nd president in March, but in July it was announced Guskiewicz will remain at Michigan State.
Bartholomae became Western Michigan's AD on Jan. 1, 2022 after five years as the executive deputy AD at Oregon State. His tenure has seen WMU break school records for MAC championships (13, 2023-24) and NCAA postseason appearances (nine, 2024-25) in a single academic year, as well as the school's first Division I national championship in men's ice hockey in 2025. Bartholomae hired Lance Taylor as head football coach, which resulted in a MAC title and a Myrtle Beach Bowl win last season.
At Michigan State, Bartholomae will not be expected to make a football hire in the foreseeable future with Pat Fitzgerald preparing for his first season leading the Spartans. His defining task will be squeezing every penny out of the astronomical $401 million gift the Williams family announced last December -- primarily to help a football program that has fallen on hard times since rocketing to No. 3 in the country under then-head coach Mel Tucker in 2021. This year's Spartan outfit is projected 16th in the 18-team Big Ten, carrying in a string of four consecutive losing seasons.
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