As Aidan Chiles returns to Michigan State on Saturday, less than a year after he transferred, he feels like a rejuvenated quarterback.
The Northwestern senior spent the last two seasons leading Spartans teams that finished with nine total wins. His final games in green were spent on the bench as Michigan State turned to Alessio Milivojevic at quarterback and Chiles battled a foot injury.
When Michigan State went through a coaching change in December, Chiles chose Northwestern through the transfer portal because he felt like it was a place where he could thrive under coach David Braun, offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and quarterbacks coach Jerry Neuheisel.
And through five games, with Kelly orchestrating an eye-catching, revitalized offense for the No. 25 Wildcats (4-1, 1-1), Chiles has found joy in football again.
“I feel like I regained my confidence,” he said Tuesday in Evanston. “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.
“Even in the loss to Indiana, I had fun playing against them and I had fun with my teammates, my guys. We fought and we competed and I was proud of us. So I really just got back to having fun playing football.”
That confidence has shown up in the stats as Chiles runs a balanced offense alongside running backs Caleb Komolafe and Joseph Himon II.
He ranks seventh in the country with a 185.85 passing efficiency rating, one spot behind Notre Dame’s CJ Carr. Miami’s Darian Mensah and Ohio State’s Julian Sayin are among the handful of big names in front of him.
More Top Picks Free Dyslexia Screening Tools You Can Use At Home
Chiles has completed 71.4% of his passes — 11th in the FBS — for 1,172 yards and nine touchdowns. He hasn’t thrown an interception, though he has had a few fumbles, including one in the end zone that resulted in an Indiana safety. He also has rushed for 73 yards and six touchdowns and has showcased his ability to extend plays with his legs.
“It comes with experience for sure,” Chiles said of his efficiency. “But I just think we preach smart football.”
Chiles’ play under Kelly has helped Northwestern enter the Associated Press rankings for the first time since the 2020 season under coach Pat Fitzgerald, who will be on the opposing sideline Saturday. The Wildcats thoroughly beat Colorado and Penn State at home and lost a close road game to defending national champion Indiana to gain AP voters’ attention.
But if they want to continue the fun and make a serious bid to climb to the top of the Big Ten, they have much bigger tests ahead. After Michigan State and Rutgers, Northwestern plays at Oregon, against No. 17 Iowa at home and at No. 4 Ohio State.
Chiles will need to continue to play confidently and efficiently to help the Wildcats get there. He has a lot of experience to lean on.
‘How are you going to respond?’
As Nikki Chiles has observed her son’s football career, she frequently asks herself how he came about his ability to handle the ups and downs, often better than she did.
Aidan grew up playing wide receiver in Southern California because he wanted to play the position his father, Adrian, did, but he always was a gifted thrower and switched to quarterback in middle school.
That didn’t translate to immediate success. Early in his high school career, Chiles wasn’t given a chance to start on the Los Alamitos varsity while playing behind five-star recruit Malachi Nelson, even though he believed he was ready.
After Chiles received his shot upon transferring to Downey for his junior season, he broke his right arm midway through the season, sidelining him until the following year.
Nikki said he “worked his butt off” through it.
“He goes through his process where he’s a little bit down, upset, but he’s unstoppable,” Nikki said. “‘I’m going to keep going. This is what I want.’ And he goes after it. He takes it on the chin, whatever it is — the injury, the coach saying no — whatever it is, he takes it. He processes it. Owns it and then says, ‘OK, I’ve got to keep moving forward.’”
In the middle of Chiles’ football obstacles, his family was dealt an even bigger challenge. Nikki was diagnosed with breast cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said after a low point, she woke up one day and told everyone that no matter what the treatment or side effects were like, she was going to manage it.
Her son helped her stick to that. If he ever saw her in a dark place, he suggested they take a walk.
“You can cry about it,” he told her. “That’s not going to do anything for you, but we can take a walk.”
“I’m like, ‘Can I just be in my moment?’” Nikki recalled. “‘No, no, you can’t have that moment because what’s it going to do for you right now?’ … I said I was going to be OK, and that was his way of keeping me there.”
Aidan said he was grateful that Nikki felt like he helped her. He always believed she would recover and said he tried to treat her like his mom and not a patient.
Nikki was declared cancer-free in 2021. And Aidan recovered from his arm injury to return for his senior season at Downey and throw for 3,350 yards and 38 touchdowns with five interceptions in 15 games.
He learned then how to weather adversity, lessons he would need as he embarked on a college career with three stops.
“A lot of things are going to happen,” he said. “A lot of things aren’t going to go exactly how you plan. But at the end of the day, how are you going to respond?
“Nobody will feel sorry for you. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. It’s how are you going to respond. I feel like I responded pretty well right now.”
Chiles played his first season as a backup at Oregon State, then followed coach Jonathan Smith to Michigan State. In 2024, he completed 59.4% of his passes for 2,415 yards and 13 touchdowns with 11 interceptions for the 5-7 Spartans.
He added 1,392 passing yards and 10 touchdowns with three interceptions in 2025 and had some fumbling issues before Michigan State turned to Milivojevic in November.
Smith said at the time that he made the move because he felt like the Spartans needed a spark, and Chiles didn’t throw another pass for them while he also dealt with a foot issue. Michigan State fired Smith at the end of a 4-8 season, and Chiles was on his way in the transfer portal.
“It was tough,” he said. “I’d never been on a losing team until I got there. But at the end of the day, it made me who I am now. It made me resilient and (gave me) what I needed to do to get where I’m at right now.”
Leaning in
If Chiles ever gets an earful from Kelly in practice, he embraces it. He wanted to be coached hard. He wanted to be challenged. He won’t complain about getting that from Kelly.
Braun said he has seen Chiles lean into being held to a high standard in the early months of his partnership with Kelly and Neuheisel, who are in their first year at Northwestern.
“Coach isn’t afraid to have fun with the guys, too, but when it’s time for us to work, it’s time to work,” Braun said. “And I’ve been really impressed with Aidan’s willingness to lean into that because as a veteran quarterback that’s played a lot of college football, it would be easy for him to say no.
“He’s leaned into it. He knows it’s for his best and the team’s best.”
Nikki said the transfer portal was different the second time around, not as robust as when Aidan moved from Oregon State to Michigan State. But he still received calls — including one from Kelly and Neuheisel when he was on a visit to South Florida.
More Top Picks Best Belt
When Chiles arrived in Evanston, he liked the people, the program, the facilities and the lakefront setting. He and Kelly watched film and talked a little about what the offense might look like if they worked together. Chiles liked that Kelly had coached quarterbacks like him before. Nikki thought the coaches seemed like good teachers.
“I felt like this was going to be my home, and I felt like this was somewhere I could thrive,” Chiles said.
He had crossed paths with Kelly and Neuheisel when he was in high school and they were at UCLA. They never offered him a scholarship. He committed to Oregon State before his senior season, and the Bruins later received a commitment from quarterback Dante Moore, who’s now at Oregon. But Neuheisel said he long admired Chiles.
This time around, Kelly said they knew Chiles was talented, had a great mind and was a leader, and they heard good things from those who worked with him. But they didn’t have a preconceived notion about how they would fix him. They walked in with a blank slate and assessed where he was with his footwork, his release and other areas of his development.
“He’s been everything we thought he was since he got here in January,” Kelly said. “We don’t really talk about the past. I never had any discussions about what it was like at his other stops.”
Neuheisel said in the preseason that Chiles had “tremendously” improved his accuracy and pocket presence and was getting a good feel for when to use his legs when plays break down.
As they continue their work, Kelly — who puts a lot on his quarterback’s shoulders at the line of scrimmage — has been pleased with how Chiles has taken to his coaching.
“Aidan is one of the best practice players I’ve been around,” Kelly said. “He does an unbelievable job at practice. Aidan’s harder on himself than any of the coaches ever are. He holds himself to an internal standard that is pretty high, so that makes everybody’s job pretty easy.”
Chiles was one of six players named captains this season and the only newcomer. He said he tries to be himself around the other players.
Braun preaches that the foundation of leadership is credibility and authenticity, and he has seen that from Chiles — though the coaches do continue to remind him of the influence he has over the entire program.
“It’s so important that you don’t ask someone to be someone that they’re not,” Braun said, “and our team sees this level of authenticity in him of just continuing to be himself and demand excellence out of himself but also others.”
Before the season opener, Neuheisel called Chiles “a ball of energy and joy,” always wearing a smile in the building and getting his teammates energized too.
“It’s one of those characteristics that few people have, that can bring people along with them and include them in that joy,” Neuheisel said. “And the way that he can play football and have fun like a kid does without acting childish, it’s really fun to watch and be a part of.”
That fun has carried into games too.
‘We want more’
Northwestern was comfortably beating Ball State during homecoming Saturday at Ryan Field, but Chiles still was making moves.
He dropped back to pass in the third quarter, then moved to his left to escape pressure and let a 32-yard pass fly to tight end Alex Honig on the run. Honig leaped to make a contested catch in the end zone and put an exclamation point on the Northwestern win.
After the game, Honig and wide receiver Griffin Wilde complimented Chiles’ ability to extend plays.
“The ability he has to scramble and create plays when they’re not there,” Wilde said in the postgame news conference. “You saw a fumble between a snap, and he picks it up and runs for 15 yards and a first down. (On the Honig touchdown) his ability to escape the pocket, throw it up, make an unbelievable throw and an unbelievable catch by Honig. The ability he has to take over a game with a play like that is really special.”
Chiles smiled as he told reporters that he played a lot of sharks and minnows as a kid.
“Being able to get away from people, staying on your feet and being able to make a play, there’s nothing to it,” he said. “Just being an athlete.”
Chiles showed up in the second half of the Indiana game, too, as he threw for 237 yards and two touchdowns after halftime and had a couple of key scrambles to help Northwestern challenge the defending national champions.
One touchdown came after he dislocated a finger on his non-throwing hand in the third quarter. He missed a play, then returned to throw a touchdown pass to Wilde.
“It didn’t hurt until after we got off the field,” Chiles said. “I didn’t really think too much of it. You play through a lot of injuries when you play football, so just another thing, just another obstacle.”
When Chiles looks at the first five games of his Northwestern career, he sees that second half against Indiana as the fun he’s talking about. Of course he wanted the win, but it was also an eye-opener for people about the Wildcats.
He wants more big moments like that.
“We didn’t get an outcome we wanted, but just playing there and being in that game,” Chiles said. “People didn’t believe in us. I love the fact that we came out and we showed people who we really were.
“At the same time, I still think we should have won that game. So I would love to play them again if we got the chance.”
It hasn’t all been perfect. Chiles has fumbled snaps and taken some bad sacks.
But Northwestern hasn’t needed him to be exceptional every game. Against Penn State, the Wildcats rushed for 413 yards, and Chiles said afterward his job that night was, “for a lack of a better word, easy.”
“If all 10 guys around me are working hard, I’m not going to trip,” he said. “I’m going to do whatever my team needs to succeed, and today it was handing the ball off to Joe and Komo.”
Chiles feels like he has been able to play free because the Wildcats have “leaders all over the field” that have held each other accountable.
More Top Picks Best Cake Levelers
Nikki has seen a difference in her son, has seen him happy with his teammates.
“Just all around seems like a very happy young man,” Nikki said. “I do see him as a confident young man. But I see a different level of confidence in him right now, a different level of joy.”
Chiles tried to tune out distractions this week as he prepared to face his former team, including Milivojevic as the starting quarterback. The Wildcats need to handle business over the next two weeks against Michigan State and Rutgers — both winless in the Big Ten — before they get into the meat of their schedule.
Chiles said he arrived at Northwestern with the idea the Wildcats could win at a higher level.
“I didn’t go anywhere to lose, so my expectations are definitely high,” he said. “My standards are high for myself and my teammates. So I mean, yes, I expected this, but at the same time, we want more.”