For the third time since 2018, Michigan State is in search of a new athletic director.

The university announced Thursday it was parting ways, effective May 11, with Alan Haller, who has been in his role since September 2021 and hired football coach Jonathan Smith away from Oregon State 18 months ago.

The Spartans went 5-7 in Smith’s first season, including a 3-6 mark in the Big Ten with wins over Maryland, Iowa and Purdue.

Perhaps more important than the Year 1 record, however, is Michigan State’s recruiting standing in the new-look Big Ten.

The Spartans had the 13th-rated recruiting class among members of the conference in 2024, according to 247Sports, and they landed at 16th in 2025. They have four prospects committed in the Class of 2026, a haul that presently ranks 16th, ahead of Nebraska and Northwestern.

MSU president Kevin Guskiewicz said the university is looking for a successor who “can best navigate the changing landscape of collegiate athletics while working closely with both internal and external stakeholders to move Michigan State forward as a leader among the Power Four institutions.”

“This is a pivotal time for college athletics, where innovation, effective communications and community engagement are more important than ever,” Guskiewicz added.

MSU’s 21st athletic director will be tasked with leading the department through a new era of collegiate sports.

Namely, funding for Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) is a front-of-mind issue. Competing NIL collectives are capable of shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars (and sometimes more) to secure players across various sports, and MSU’s new athletics director will look to keep the Spartans competitive.

“It has been terrible. It’s been awful,” Arkansas AD Hunter Yurachek said in September, while speaking at the Little Rock Touchdown Club and discussing the challenges of NIL. “… The amount of money that was getting paid was simply ridiculous, and still are ridiculous, and they just continue to be ridiculous. … Collectives aren’t paying market value. They’re just buying teams.

“That figure has grown to just a ridiculous number, and athletic directors are charged many times with going out and raising those dollars through various means. … I will tell you the upper echelon of the SEC in football is probably spending double of what we’re spending on our football program right now in the NIL space. That’s reality.”

In a recent interview with WILX News 10, Michigan State donor Jim Heos said Guskiewicz is having to make “maybe the biggest hire ever” when choosing a new AD: “I think we need someone who will go out and pound the bushes and get money into the university,” Heos added.

“When I see how much other universities are paying athletes, I don’t like it, but that’s the only way you’re going to compete in today’s world. You need somebody that’ll go out and contact people in the state of Michigan and MSU alumni who are around the country.”

The ongoing House v. NCAA settlement looms large, as well.

While not yet finalized, the settlement will impose roster limits and the distribution of $20.5 million per school in revenue sharing.

Jacksonville State athletics director Greg Seitz, while speaking on AL.com’s “Beat Everyone” podcast, expressed desire for Congress to step into college athletics and allow the NCAA to “make some rules and get some parameters without the threat of lawsuits.”

Recent developments and the ever-changing nature of collegiate sports make being the athletic director at Michigan State — or any university, for that matter — challenging, but some see it as an expected hurdle.

Change doesn’t have to be a cause for panic, it is argued.

“The industry is changing, yes, without question, and it is changing at a pace that I would imagine has been seen in every industry. … It is changing more, and it is changing quicker. … But the industry was always changing,” Western Michigan AD Dan Bartholomae told The Detroit News.

“What is changing because of it, which is a shame because these are frankly things I enjoy about this business, is the relationship between the AD and the student athletes, watching them develop and grow. There’s definitely a new dynamic to it.

“We’ve always needed to be revenue generators and fundraisers. It’s always been our job to generate revenue.

“What’s different is how you’re using that revenue.”