Michigan State football offense has intriguing assets. But can Spartans put it together?

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.

Michigan State quarterback Aidan Chiles runs with the team during the first day of football camp on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in East Lansing.

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/michigan-state-football-offense-intriguing-100505682.html

Author : Detroit Free Press

Publish date : 2024-08-03 10:05:05

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