MSU’s Milivojevic Provides Glimmer of Hope in Otherwise Bleak Future
The mood in East Lansing about Michigan State football is full of doom and despair at the moment. MSU just lost yet another game, marking six in a row, in a 23-20 overtime loss to Minnesota on Saturday.
Doom and despair are completely justified. The Spartans are now 0-6 during Big Ten play and will almost certainly fail to reach a bowl game for a fourth straight season. Head coach Jonathan Smith is 8-13 overall at MSU and just 3-12 against conference opponents, with only one Power Four win coming against a team with a winning record (8-5 Iowa last year).
Six consecutive defeats mean that one has to look for any sign of optimism. Michigan State has certainly played hard, but this is far too high a level of competition for that to be an actual plus.
Something tangible is the play of quarterback Alessio Milivojevic during his first-ever start in college. Maybe, just maybe, he can be someone to be excited about for the future.
After the game, Milivojevic says that he did not learn that he was going to start until Friday night. Despite the relatively short notice, he threw for 311 yards and a touchdown while completing nearly three-quarters of his passes.
Even though he is only a redshirt freshman, Milivojevic looked like a pretty experienced passer out there. The ball looks good coming out of his hand, and he made some pretty impressive throws while being hit or while under pressure.
Of course, Milivojevic got the start in place of Aidan Chiles, who had started the first 20 games of the Smith era after following him to MSU from Oregon State. Milivojevic’s 311 yards is a greater total than all but one of Chiles’, which was a 363-yard day during his second-ever start against Maryland.
One difference between Saturday for Milivojevic’s day on Saturday and Chiles’ career-high last year is that Milivojevic ultimately took care of the ball. Some inexperience showed with ball security for him, but he never threw a pick or lost a fumble. During that game against the Terrapins last year, Chiles threw two interceptions and coughed up another turnover.
What complicates things is Smith’s job security, or lack thereof. The fit between him and Michigan State does not seem to be there, but that $33 million buyout might not be a price that the school or its donors are willing to pay.
If Smith were to stick around for 2026, that instantly creates an interesting quarterback situation between Milivojevic and Chiles that could result in one of them entering the transfer portal. Chiles would only have one year of eligibility remaining, and he probably does not want to spend it second on a depth chart.
Milivojevic will have three years left, so that would make him more motivated to stay if he’s QB2, but if he keeps playing like he did against Minnesota, it is a near certainty that he would have some interest from other schools to be QB1 for them.
If Smith were to go, that’s when things get really complicated. Players will enter the transfer portal left and right, and that complicates things for the quarterbacks.
Chiles and Smith were a package deal when they came to East Lansing, but Smith probably will not get a comparable job to being the head guy at Michigan State.
Chances are, though, a hypothetical new coach would probably choose Milivojevic over Chiles. Unless that coach is taking his own quarterback with him, it’s a simple choice. Milivojevic has more eligibility and much more time to get even better.
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