EAST LANSING – The rebirth of Aidan Chiles has Northwestern knocking on the door of the top 25.
And it has Joe Rossi looking into the past on how to defend Michigan State football’s former starting quarterback – and well beyond their past two years together.
The Spartans’ defensive coordinator’s challenge – with injuries decimating his unit – is to slow down Chiles and Wildcats offensive coordinator Chip Kelly’s revival of the Wing-T offense to maximize Chiles’ blend of running and passing ability.
“He’s a good player, a good human being,” Rossi said of Chiles after practice Wednesday, Oct. 14. “Athletic, big arm. He can make plays, he can create.
“He’s playing well.”
As MSU (2-4, 0-3 Big Ten) looks to end a four-game losing streak on Saturday, Chiles
and Kelly have Northwestern (4-1, 1-1) heading in the opposite direction toward a bowl berth. Kickoff is at noon (Peacock/NBC Sports) for Chiles’ first game back at Spartan Stadium since last year’s 31-20 loss to Michigan, after which the two-time captain was benched for current starter Alessio Milivojevic.
“It’s a fun opportunity,” Chiles told NUSports.com. “That’s really all it is – another game, another nameless, faceless opponent coming out and competing. At the end of the day, we’re still cool. I’m going to talk to them after the game, but in between the lines, we've got to play football the same.”
Milivojevic on Tuesday said he and Chiles remain close friends and raved about how Chiles helped him last season during the transition over the final four games after losing the starting job.
“He stayed positive. It’s not easy to do that,” Milivojevic said. “And I give him all the props in the world. He stayed positive, he stayed a contributor to this team by staying positive and in having my back at all times. I’ll forever be grateful to him for staying positive and having my back. Always.”
A former four-star recruit who began his career at Oregon State, Chiles followed Jonathan Smith to MSU after the 2023 season and immediately became QB1 in his second season of college football. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound native of Long Beach, California, would start the next 20 games for the Spartans, becoming the 18th quarterback in program history to eclipse 3,000 passing yards (3,807). He completed 61% of his throws with 23 touchdowns and 25 interceptions, adding nine rushing touchdowns.
But MSU’s offensive line struggled to protect him, and Chiles got sacked 51 times. The Spartans had an 8-12 record with him starting before Smith and his staff switched to Milivojevic for the final four games last season. (Chiles was inactive for the last three after taking one snap at Minnesota.)
“I feel like I’ve regained my confidence a little more,” Chiles said. “I feel like the last few years haven’t been as fun playing football, and this year, I came back — and it took a little minute — but at the end of the day, football’s been fun recently.”
Chiles hit the portal after last season ended and Pat Fitzgerald was being hired, picking the former Northwestern coach’s alma mater in early January. His decision came a little more than a week after Fitzgerald’s replacement in 2023, coach David Braun, hired Kelly – whom former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer recently called “a football savant” – after he was fired as offensive coordinator of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Instead of a pro-style system, Kelly went back into football’s bygone era to revive elements of the Wing-T, which uses misdirection and sleight of hand to run the ball, and has blended it with read-pass options with Chiles. While running is one of the best traits Chiles showed at MSU, he has done more with his arm than his legs thanks to having a productive run game (203.0 yards per game, 32nd nationally and fourth in the Big Ten) and stronger blocking in front of him (nine sacks).
“On first and second downs, they’re being very creative, creating matchups and doing a good job of creating some indecision with the run fits,” Rossi said. “Obviously, they’re running a lot of Wing-T plays and doing a really good job with it. Obviously they’re doing some things with the receivers and with the depth and moving them around.
“I think it’s pretty unique what they’re doing. And it’s a testament to them because they’re scoring a lot of points and moving the ball and running the ball for a lot of yards against some good defenses.”
Under the tutelage of Kelly and quarterbacks coach Jerry Neuheisel, Chiles is 80 of 112 passing (71.4%) for 1,172 yards with nine touchdowns and no interceptions this season. While he’s added five rushing TDs, the 21-year-old, fourth-year senior has not had a run longer than 18 yards and has 73 yards on 44 attempts. He’s also directing an offense that is averaging 35.4 points a game, 37th in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
“We've got to be better with our details. Way better,” MSU senior defensive tackle Ben Roberts said Wednesday. “With the Wing-T, they present a lot of stuff – a lot of stuff that we don’t usually see – so we've got to be detailed in our work.”
The Spartans will try to contain Chiles with a defense missing starting linebackers Jordan Hall and Brady Pretzlaff, both of whom returned from injury last week against Illinois but each left the game with injuries minutes apart in the first quarter. Backup linebacker Caleb Wheatland also is out against the Wildcats. Starting cornerbacks Tre Bell and Tyran Chappell will sit again, and No. 3 cornerback Charles Brantley is out after getting hurt against the Illini.
The Spartans used two freshmen at cornerback (Jeremiah Favorite and KJ Deriso). They also were down to their fifth through seventh linebackers by the fourth quarter against the Illini after the injuries to Hall, Pretzlaff, Wheatland and Dion Crawford (who was not on Wednesday’s availability report).
Hours before the availability report was released, Rossi was asked about how he assessed his personnel with all the in-game injuries.
“You want an honest answer?” he said. “It’s like, who’s available? And then we put them in the game. And then we make calls based off of what we’d seen them do in practice and try to put them in positions to be successful.
“But when you get that number of people that go down, you’re just, ‘Hey, who’s available? Who can go? Let’s get ’em in and let’s do some things that they know how to do.’”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 'Football’s been fun' for Aidan Chiles, who returns to face depleted Michigan State defense
