EAST LANSING – Aidan Chiles is feeling more at home in the pocket than ever.
The Michigan State football quarterback’s poise will be tested this weekend – by an aggressive USC defense and the pressure of a homecoming.
Chiles and the Spartans head to Southern California to open Big Ten play against the Trojans on Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. In the stands, the Long Beach native will have his parents, a lot of relatives and plenty of friends watching.
Along with the entire college football world, with an 11 p.m. ET kickoff and a national television audience (Fox). Even though Chiles said he pushed thinking about this trip aside until after MSU finished its nonconference schedule with a 41-24 win over Youngstown State on Saturday, Sept. 13.
“We played three games before this, and I focused on each game like every other week, how we come to prepare each week,” Chiles said after practice Tuesday, Sept. 16. “And now it’s time to go home. It is what it is, it’s just another game. This game is no bigger than the other games.”
If it seems like he’s downplaying the personal meaning, it is somewhat intentional and goes back to when Chiles was the senior star quarterback at Downey High. Going into one matchup that season, he said his attention was more focused on “asking somebody to homecoming after the game.”
When he watched back film of that game, his coaches told him he looked distracted. That, Chiles said, was the moment it clicked for him on what he needed to do.
“After that,” he said, “it was just like, ‘You know what? Football, I gotta lock in. I gotta do better.’”
Even though he’s known for a good while that the trip to USC was ahead, particularly during the offseason, Chiles said putting that aside was not difficult.
“Before the season starts, you’re excited. OK, I get to go home and play a game,” he said. “But once the season starts and it’s Week 1, it’s Week 1 and that’s the team you’re focused on. And the next week, you focus on the next team and so on and so forth. I can’t be worried about a game next week and I’m playing a game this week.”
So far this season, Chiles has been dialed in on a game-by-game basis. The 6-foot-3, 225-pound junior set a career high with 76 rushing yards to go with 270 passing yards and a touchdown. That came a week after he earned Big Ten co-offensive player of the week honors for his 231 passing yards with four touchdowns through the air and another on the ground while directing a 42-40 double-overtime win over Boston College.
“Just having recruited him and knowing the family, I’m sure it’ll be a big game for him. Kind of the first time going back and playing in his hometown, I’m sure he’s excited about it,” offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren, who also coached Chiles at Oregon State, said Tuesday. “But Aidan’s pretty excited to play every week, so I haven’t really noticed a specific difference.”
Chiles this season is completing 71.6% of his passes for 656 yards with six touchdowns and one interception, which came against YSU as a result of a tipped throw in the backfield after a missed block in front of him.
“I think he’s matured a lot,” center Matt Gulbin said of Chiles’ first three games.
That maturity will be tested.
USC ranks second in the country in three key categories that should have Chiles’ utmost attentinon – six interceptions, 4.76 sacks and 10.3 tackles for loss per game. Chiles already has been sacked eight times, tied for 13th most in FBS, after absorbing 30 sacks last season.
Lindgren said Chiles’ developing determination to not abandon the pocket, even with his dynamic ability to break free for big runs, has been a key to his growth early this season after spending months challenging him to do just that.
“Last year, he was moved off his spot a little bit. He’d kind of get himself out of position, and he wasn’t in a passing profile to make the throw to the No. 2 and No. 3 receiver,” Lindgren said. “And we’ve been really challenging him in the offseason about keeping that passing profile, subtle movements, being able to find that. I think he had some pretty good reps of that the last couple weeks to where he’s being able to keep (the offense) on the field.
“Kind of the hard part of that is sometimes he just moves in the pocket and then feels an open space and goes and takes off with his legs. You gotta be kind of careful to not maybe overcoach that too much, the instinct out of him.”
In an alternate universe, the Spartans (3-0) could have been facing Chiles and the Trojans (3-0, 1-0). The 20-year-old said USC coach Lincoln Riley recruited him out of the portal in 2023 during the interim between when coach Jonathan Smith left Oregon State and before Chiles followed him from the Beavers to MSU that December.
Riley called Chiles “a really athletic kid” on Monday during the Trojans Live radio show.
“A kid obviously that we know,” Riley said. “We respect his ability. … Him being a dual-threat, having some experience, it’s somebody we’re gonna have to do a good job with.”
Instead of wearing cardinal and gold, however, Chiles will be in his green and white trying to leave Los Angeles with a 1-0 Big Ten record. And he had a message for MSU fans who will make the trip along with him.
“Let’s just make the whole stadium green, that’s all I really gotta see,” Chiles said. “We got a lot of people coming to the game. Let’s green out the stadium and make it ours.”
Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Aidan Chiles’ homecoming lesson: Michigan State football QB focused on USC in return to LA
Reporting by Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
