EAST LANSING — Perhaps it wasn’t surprising, considering he would later declare himself the best quarterback in the Big Ten, and yes, even the nation. But minutes before he made that bold proclamation, Aidan Chiles expressed the utmost confidence in the potential of the Michigan State football offense.
“I think we have all tools, all the keys we need,” Chiles said Thursday. “We’ve just got to put it together now.”
Over the next four weeks, leading into the Aug. 30 opener against Florida Atlantic, that will be the charge of veteran offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren, new head coach Jonathan Smith’s right-hand man the past six seasons. During that period, which elapsed at Oregon State, Smith and Lindgren teamed up to create a well-oiled machine that turned into a powerful apparatus ranked 11th in the country in opponent-adjusted efficiency last season. The Beavers were a balanced attack, passing on 46.8% of their plays and running at a clip of 4.9 yards per carry — the 26th-best average in the country. Three time zones away, in East Lansing, Lindgren believes he and Smith can reproduce a facsimile of the finely tuned operation they ran in Corvallis.
“The concepts will be pretty similar,” said Lindgren. “I think by the time we get to the end of training camp, we’ll have a bulk of what we did at Oregon State.”
And from that point on, Chiles said, the Spartans can go “as far as we take it.”
The possibilities are tantalizing, 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, commanded, saying that the play designs allow MSU to “stretch all halves of the field” and take more deep shots. Last season, during a dreadful slog to a 4-8 record disrupted by the midseason firing of Mel Tucker, the Spartans often looked impotent.
Their ineptitude, in part, could be attributed to three unproven quarterbacks — Noah Kim, Katin Houser and Sam Leavitt — playing significant snaps. MSU resembled a disjointed mess as a result, ranking second-to-last in the entire Football Bowl Subdivision in points per drive and 13th out of 14 Big Ten teams in scoring average. A shutout against Penn State in the season finale provided a fitting coda to that miserable fall. A day later, Smith arrived and soon thereafter Kim, Houser and Leavitt all left the program. That opened the door for Chiles, a sophomore, to follow Smith from Oregon State to MSU.
“He’s a dude,” Foster raved. “He makes plays.”
Referring to Chiles, MSU safety Dillon Tatum offered similar praise.
“We’ve got a really good quarterback that can run and pass and make good decisions,” he said.
Chiles, who played 100 snaps with the Beavers as a freshman, is one of three transfers from Oregon State who man particularly valuable positions in Lindgren’s offense and could conceivably accelerate the implementation of his multifaceted scheme. The others are interior lineman Tanner Miller and tight end Jack Velling.
Miller, a cerebral player who has started at both guard spots and center over a college career spanning six seasons, will be an important cog for a rebuilt front trying to develop chemistry as it aims to master the nuanced zone-running concepts Lindgren intends to execute.
“It’s coming along,” Lindgren said. “But we’re definitely not there yet. … It’s definitely a learning process.”
Velling, like Miller, has provided a helping hand to the holdovers from Tucker’s regime. The 6-foot-5, 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, may do everything in their power to make that projection become reality. The position Velling occupies, after all, is an important one in Lindgren’s offense. That is evidenced by the picks of former Oregon State tight ends Teagan Quitoriano and Luke Musgrave in the 2022 and ’23 NFL drafts. It is also reflected in Velling’s stat line in 2023, when he led the Beavers with eight touchdown receptions.
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Last season, Lindgren leveraged Velling to create matchup advantages, flexing him out wide and into the slot, even occasionally moving him into the backfield when he was not attached to the line.
“That’s a big piece of what we like to do, and it’s awesome to have a guy in that spot,” Lindgren said.
As Chiles said, “He’s very valuable, for sure. He already knew the offense. He came in and there were no hiccups. … It’s good.”
Velling figures to be one of the primary playmakers within a unit that has several other intriguing pieces. There is Foster, the team’s most productive wideout last year. There is also Nate Carter, MSU’s leading rusher last year, who has designs on expanding the dimensions of his game as a pass-catcher coming out of the backfield. And now there is 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 alike throughout the offseason.
Look around MSU’s practice fields, and it becomes easier to understand why Chiles believes the Spartans can strike back this season.
“With all these pieces put together,” Carter said, “we have the opportunity to present a struggle for the defense. … Our offense is organized, where many 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 that.
Contact Rainer Sabin at rsabin@freepress.com. Follow him @RainerSabin
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Michigan State football offense could be primed for 2024 rebound
