However, he won only one more game in a Spartan uniform and didn't see the field for the final four games of the season. He was replaced by Alessio Milivojevic, the sophomore who will lead MSU on Saturday when Chiles returns to East Lansing.

“I don’t think I have to prove anything extra,” Milivojevic said at Tuesday’s press conference. “That’s college football at the end of the day now. Guy’s come from different places and end up playing each other.”

Through 20 games for the Spartans, Chiles showed flashes, but it never fully clicked, and he won only eight games. His last game as a Spartan, and his last at Spartan Stadium, was a 31-20 loss to No. 25 Michigan, a game in which he fumbled on the third play of the game.

He arrived with program-changing expectations as the No. 2 quarterback in the 2024 transfer portal, according to 247Sports, following head coach Jonathan Smith from Oregon State to MSU at just 18 years old.

Those were expectations he never fully met.

His first season ended with a 41-14 home blowout loss to Rutgers with a bowl game on the line, capping a 5-7 record. Afterward, Chiles promised change was coming.

“To the fans that stayed at the game through the whole game and the whole season. This will not be the same next year,” Chiles said in his postgame press conference. “I can promise you that.”

A promise unfulfilled, as the next season was worse.

The Spartans started 3-1 with Chiles throwing for 868 yards, nine touchdowns and one interception. A promising start was quickly torn apart in the following weeks.

MSU lost its next four games, and Chiles passed for 524 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. He then missed the final four games of the season, citing an injury.

An anticlimactic ending for Chiles pushed Milivojevic into the starting role. Despite going 1-3 to close the season, Milivojevic threw for 986 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions. That stretch included three-point road losses to Minnesota (8-5) in overtime and Iowa (9-4). As a freshman, Milivojevic displayed a level of readiness he credited to his time working with Chiles.

“He’s played a lot of football; he’s started a lot of games. He knows the quarterback position well. So just talking to him and asking him what he sees, why he made this read, why he made that throw kinda helped me progress my game as well,” Milivojevic said.

By the season’s end, Smith was fired, and with his coach gone, Chiles entered the transfer portal. Meanwhile, Milivojevic stayed despite being recruited by Smith and became a consistent presence while the new staff began to recruit talent out of the transfer portal.

Now Chiles brings Northwestern to Spartan Stadium to face his former school, led by head coach Pat Fitzgerald, a former Wildcats linebacker who led Northwestern for 17 years through some of its most successful seasons.

So far, with Chiles at quarterback, Northwestern is 4-1. He's on pace for the best season of his career. He's completed 71.4% of his passes for 1,172 yards, nine touchdowns and zero interceptions, while adding six rushing touchdowns. He has also done something he never did at MSU: lead his team into the AP Top 25, giving Northwestern its first ranking since January 2021.

Meanwhile, Milivojevic, Fitzgerald and the Spartans have looked similar to the teams Chiles led, just 2-4 and still looking for their first Big Ten win. Milivojevic has completed 65.8% of his passes for 1,047 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions. However, the sophomore is coming off his cleanest game of the season: 22-for-26 for 196 yards and two touchdowns without a turnover in a 38-37 overtime loss to Illinois.

“At the end of the day it’s another game, and it’s another time we have a chance to go prove ourselves and a chance to go get a win for our team,” Milivojevic said.

Milivojevic and the Spartans (2-4, 0-3 Big Ten) will try to get their first conference win against Chiles and No. 25 Northwestern (4-1, 1-1 Big Ten). Kick off is set for noon Saturday at Spartan Stadium. The game will air on Peacock.