Chiles debuts tonight against the No. 2 Jackrabbits
Aidan Chiles gets his first start under Chip Kelly tonight against a South Dakota State team that just hung 70 on Stetson, and David Braun isn't treating it like a layup.
Chiles gets his first start tonight, backed by 6 captains and $35 million
David Braun named Aidan Chiles the starter on August 24, and tonight is the payoff — a Michigan State transfer with 4,126 career passing yards and 27 touchdowns taking his first snap in a Northwestern uniform, per Pete Thamel. Chiles started 20 games across two seasons at Michigan State, per CBS Sports and ESPN, and last season alone he completed 63 percent of his throws for 1,392 yards and 10 scores across 9 games, per the Daily Northwestern. Two days after being named the guy, he was voted one of 6 team captains — the largest class Northwestern has picked since 2020. "To be voted a team captain I think is a reflection of his ability to come in and build relationships very quickly on this football team," Braun told the paper.
Listen to the "Wildcat Insider" podcast with @DaveEanet and @dan_persa7. Joined by Week 1 guest, Aidan Chiles. 🔊 t.co/29CQc03Gwf
The building has noticed fast. Tight end Alex Honig called the room "absolutely excited" watching Chiles start so many Big Ten games at Michigan State, and Luke Dehnicke called him "a super great guy, great to be around... it's been really fun to play with him and have him throw us the ball." Chiles sat down as the Week 1 guest on the program's own "Wildcat Insider" podcast this week with Dave Eanet and Dan Persa, which tells you where the spotlight is pointed before he has even played a down.
It isn't the up-tempo Oregon system Chip Kelly ran a decade ago, either. What Kelly is installing is closer to his run-based UCLA teams, and he's already singled out center Jackson Carsello's ability to run the offensive line in practice as a strength up front — an offense that averaged only 23.4 points and 346.1 yards a game last year, per CBS Sports, is getting an actual scheme change. None of it is happening in a vacuum: the family of Liz and Dick Uihlein committed $35 million over the next three years to the program in August, on top of the $850 million-plus in private gifts funding the new Ryan Field, and Braun told ESPN there's "no greater visual to what level of investment we're putting into football" than the stadium and the Kelly hire together.
Braun isn't calling this a tune-up, and the FCS poll agrees
Braun used Monday's press conference to kill any idea that an FCS opener is a soft landing. "We're not easing in the season. That's for sure," he said, calling South Dakota State "a national championship caliber program," per the Daily Northwestern's own game-week preview. It isn't just a coach padding an opponent for optics — the Jackrabbits sit No. 2 in the FCS Coaches Poll after opening the year with a 70-7 demolition of Stetson, with James Basinger (110 yards) and Corey Blair Jr. (107 yards, 2 touchdowns) combining for 3 of their 10 scores. Blair will share the backfield with returning back Josiah Johnson and Northeastern State transfer Ramon McKinney Jr., who ran for 1,093 yards and 15 touchdowns a season ago.
“Making my way, finding my voice on this team...it’s a big honor." Griffin Wilde’s evolution from transfer to captain sets the stage for a full-circle season opener against his former team. ✍️ @CharlieSpungin t.co/qsPo0PZlP6
There's a personal thread running through it, too. Griffin Wilde caught 70 passes for 1,147 yards and 12 touchdowns in two seasons at South Dakota State before transferring to Evanston, and tonight he lines up against the program that made him a name. "Making my way, finding my voice on this team... it's a big honor," Wilde told Northwestern's own account, @NUFBFamily, in a feature on his path from transfer to captain. Fellow SDSU transfer Evan Beerntsen starts up front for the Wildcats, and former SDSU offensive coordinator Zach Lujan — now on Northwestern's staff — has his own fingerprints on tonight's gameplan.
Braun knows the level up close from a third angle: he cut his coaching teeth at North Dakota State, SDSU's biggest rival in the FCS ranks, before he ever coached a Big Ten snap. It's the voice of a coach who has seen this exact matchup from the other sideline and isn't interested in getting caught looking past it.
Last season ended on a blowout, but it took a rollercoaster to get there
Northwestern closed out last season by hammering Central Michigan 34-7 on December 26, a lopsided send-off after a Big Ten stretch that never let the Wildcats settle. They lost 38-17 at USC in November, then dropped a 24-22 heartbreaker to Michigan, rallied for a wild 38-35 escape over Minnesota, and lost the regular-season finale at Illinois, 20-13, before that bowl blowout.
None of it carries over literally — the record is 0-0 tonight and there's no current run to point to — but it's the version of this program the new staff inherited: capable of hanging with anyone, capable of blowing a team out, and short on the games that turn 2-3 stretches into results. Closing that gap is exactly what Chip Kelly and Aidan Chiles were brought in to do, starting tonight.
Northwestern opens as a home favorite in a game shaped like a rout that isn't supposed to be one
Northwestern opened tonight vs. South Dakota State favored by 12.5 points, with the total set at 46.5 — a number that reads low-scoring for a home favorite of that size, and one that lines up with a Chip Kelly offense still finding its first live rep with a new quarterback under center. South Dakota State arrives 1-0 after beating Stetson 70-7, which is exactly the kind of form that makes a 12.5-point number feel thinner than it looks on paper.
Win or struggle, the calendar doesn't wait: Northwestern is back home again on September 19 against a Colorado team that opened 1-0 with a 14-13 win at Georgia Tech, this one priced by DraftKings once the market catches up. Tonight is the only game on the board that matters, though — the first real look at what Braun, Kelly and Chiles have actually built.