Michigan State football: 2025 schedule and key games
Michigan State football’s schedule and key games for the 2025 season.
- Michigan State quarterback Aidan Chiles is focused on improving his game and leading the Spartans to a bowl game in the upcoming season.
- Chiles, who transferred from Oregon State, showed promise as a sophomore but also struggled with interceptions.
- The Spartans have hired his former quarterbacks coach, Jon Boyer, to help Chiles refine his mechanics and decision-making.
EAST LANSING – Aidan Chiles whisked throw after throw through brisk winds and chilly late-October temperatures.
Only it was Tuesday, the first day in April. Perfect fall football weather.
“Yeah, it’s terrible. It’s terrible,” the Southern California native said with a grin and chuckle. “But it’s a good thing, though. It’s really just good. We talk about it – we own the weather around here, and it’s something we need to work on, something we need to do.”
Handling the elements also is far down on the to-do list for both Chiles and Michigan State football this spring. Getting more production would be first and foremost, leading to bigger-picture goals like getting the Spartans back to a bowl game for the first time since 2021 and competing for a Big Ten title for the first time in a decade.
MSU went 5-7 in Chiles’ debut as the starting quarterback, his true sophomore season after following first-year coach Jonathan Smith as a transfer from Oregon State. The hope is to build on that in Year 2 and get the Spartans to the postseason for the first time since they finished No. 8 in the country after a Peach Bowl win under previous coach Mel Tucker, his lone bowl game in three-plus seasons.
“We knew we were close, and we just didn’t execute the way we wanted to execute,” Chiles said after MSU’s seventh of 15 spring practices. “And now we have to do that, like, that’s really what it is. There’s no sugarcoating it. We have to go out there, and we have to execute how we know we can. …
“I think it’s a good wake-up call. Like, yeah, this is how things are gonna be if you don’t win. That’s just what it is. And we don’t want to feel that way again. We know we don’t want to feel that way again. It was just something to sit in and soak for a second. And then after that, you just learn.”
Chiles, who played in nine games as an 18-year-old true freshman under Smith with the Beavers, showed flashes of his prodigious talent along with the pangs of his inexperience in 2024. The 6-foot-3, 217-pound junior-to-be completed 59% of his throws (192-of-323 passing) for 2,415 yards with 13 touchdowns and ran 97 times for 225 yards and three more scores last season. Interceptions, however, were a problem, especially early. All 11 of his picks came in the first nine games; Chiles did not throw another over his final 102 attempts in the final three-plus games.
So offense-minded Smith and offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren reached into their past and plucked Jon Boyer from Oregon State during the offseason and reunited him with Chiles as MSU’s new quarterbacks coach. That came about because the NCAA recently allowed an unlimited number of onfield coaches for programs, which Lindgren – who pulled double-duty working with the Spartans’ QBs last season – called “unique.”
“At Oregon State, we were five years together, and we talked a lot last year,” Lindgren said Tuesday of Boyer. “He’s a really knowledgeable coach, and it’s been awesome, because it’s got really two guys focusing. He’s been able to dive into a lot of the technique, spend really a lot of time breaking it down, working with those (quarterbacks) extra.
“I think about Aidan, with his footwork, and we’re talking about the subtle movement, his clock. And then there’s some things mechanically with some of our younger guys that he’s been really able to dive into that, sometimes as a coordinator, you just didn’t necessarily have as much time to be able to do that because you were worried about the scheme and the whole offense.”
Chiles said he and Boyer pored over game film of last season to analyze and assess mechanical issues and enhance the speed of his decision-making and reads. The quarterback called the new coaching staff addition “the best thing that ever happened” since he arrived at MSU.
“Just having him as just another coach here to bounce things off of and just listen to and learn from, it’s amazing,” Chiles said of Boyer. “Because I feel like he’s one of the better coach that I had at Oregon State, and now he’s one of the better coaches that I had here. And it’s just amazing to see the growth that I’ve gained and everything that I’ve learned just being with him. …
“It’s just really understanding the little things. Everything with Boyer is very tedious. Yeah, stuff like that gets annoying sometimes, but at the same time, when you learn it like that, you don’t have to worry about it when you’re on the field. So it’s little things. Basically, we talk about learning how to tie your shoelaces again. Every new moment, from winter, spring, fall, we’re gonna go back to the basics, to the mechanics again. We’re gonna learn how to throw the ball again, we’re gonna learn how to read a defense and learn how to understand what’s up front.”
The Spartans ranked 110th in the Football Bowl Subdivision in total offense (333.4 yards per game) and 123rd in scoring (19.3 points). Still, going through the film repeatedly, seeing his little mistakes with footwork or other things, seeing the offensive mistiming and missteps, it reinforced to Chiles how close MSU was to making the postseason. And added fuel to focus on making it happen this fall.
“I don’t think there is a ceiling for the team in general, not just myself,” he said. “The team in general, I think we just need to grow on what we learned last year. Last year was tough for us. But after that, last year is last year. So now, it’s a whole new team, a whole new everything. And it’s just time to go, time to work.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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