EAST LANSING – Perhaps it wasn’t surprising considering he would later declare himself the best quarterback in the Big Ten and, yes, even the country. But minutes before making this bold proclamation, Aidan Chiles expressed the utmost confidence in the potential of Michigan State Football offense.
“I think we have all the tools, all the keys we need,” Chiles said Thursday. “We just have to put it all together now.”
For the next four weeks, before the Aug. 30 opener against Florida Atlantic, that will be the command of veteran offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren, new head coach Jonathan Smith’s right-hand man for the past six seasons. During that time at Oregon State, Smith and Lindgren teamed up to create a well-oiled machine that grew into an 11th-ranked powerhouse.th in the country in opponent-adjusted efficiency last season. The Beavers had a balanced attack, passing on 46.8% of their plays and rushing at a rate of 4.9 yards per carry – the 26thth-best average in the country. Three time zones away in East Lansing, Lindgren believes he and Smith can reproduce a facsimile of the fine-tuned operation they ran in Corvallis.
“The concepts will be quite similar,” Lindgren said. “I think by the time we get to the end of training camp, we’ll have a lot of what we did at Oregon State.”
And from that point, Chiles said, the Spartans can go “as far as we can.”
The possibilities are tempting, as Chiles implied.
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Fifth-year receiver Montorie Foster Jr. describes the offense as more “dynamic” than the one Lindgren’s predecessor, Jay Johnson, ran, saying the play designs allow MSU to “stretch all halves of the field.” ” and takes deeper shots. Last season, during a horrific journey to a 4-8 record interrupted by Mel Tucker’s midseason firing, the Spartans often seemed helpless.
Their ineptitude, in part, can be attributed to three unproven quarterbacks — Noah Kim, Katin Houser and Sam Leavitt — who played significant snaps. As a result, MSU looked like a disjointed mess, ranking second-to-last in the entire Football Bowl Subdivision in points per drive and 13th of 14 Big Ten teams in scoring average. A season-ending loss against Penn State provided a fitting outcome to that miserable slide. A day later, Smith arrived and soon after Kim, Houser and Leavitt left the show. That opened the door for Chiles, a sophomore, to follow Smith from Oregon State to MSU.
“He’s a guy,” Foster raved. “He makes plays.”
Referring to Chile, MSU safety Dillon Tatum had similar praise.
“We have a very good quarterback who can run, pass and make good decisions,” he said.
Chiles, who played 100 snaps with the Beavers as a freshman, is one of three Oregon State transfers who occupy particularly valuable positions in Lindgren’s offense and could accelerate the implementation of his multifaceted scheme. The others are interior lineman Tanner Miller and tight end Jack Velling.
Miller, a cerebral player who started at both guard and center over a six-season college career, will be an important piece for a rebuilt front trying to develop chemistry as it aims to master the nuanced zone-running concepts that Lindgren intends to execute .
“It’s going well,” Lindgren said. “But we’re definitely not there yet. …It’s definitely a learning process.”
Velling, like Miller, helped the remnants of the Tucker regime. The 6-foot-2, 244-pound junior is a versatile asset who, Smith said, has “a chance to become one of the best tight ends in the country.”
Smith, and by extension Lindgren, can do everything in their power to make that projection a reality. After all, the position Velling occupies is important in Lindgren’s attack. This is evidenced by the selections of former Oregon State tight ends Teagan Quitoriano and Luke Musgrave in the 2022 and ’23 NFL Drafts. This is also reflected in Velling’s stat line in 2023, as he led the Beavers with eight touchdown receptions.
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Last season, Lindgren leveraged Velling to create matchup advantages, flexing him outside and inside the slot, even occasionally moving him into the backfield when he wasn’t tied to the line.
“That’s a big part of what we like to do and it’s awesome to have a guy in that position,” Lindgren said.
As Chiles said: “He’s very valuable, for sure. He already knew the crime. He walked in and there were no hiccups. … It is good.”
Velling is considered one of the key playmakers within a unit that has several other intriguing pieces. There’s Foster, the team’s most productive player last year. There’s also Nate Carter, MSU’s leading rusher last year, who looks to expand the dimensions of his game as a pass catcher out of the backfield. And now there’s Nick Marsh, a freshman receiver from River Rouge who enrolled in January and is expected to be deployed immediately after making a positive impression on coaches and teammates during the offseason.
Take a look at MSU’s training camp and it’ll be easier to understand why Chiles believes the Spartans can fight back this season.
“With all these pieces together,” Carter said, “we have an opportunity to present a fight for defense. … Our offense is organized, where a lot of different people can make plays. It’s hard for a defense to be able to combat that.”
At the very least, it gives the Spartans hope that better, more productive days are on the horizon. In fact, Chiles seems certain of this.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin
This article originally appeared in the Detroit Free Press: Why Michigan State’s football offense could be primed for a 2024 rebound
